User talk:Usmanrahim

You are a partner of a three-person law firm in a large town located within 30 miles of Chicago. You started the business more than 20 years ago, after spending 10 years working your way up the ladder of one of Chicago’s hottest law frim. Rather than go the partner route, you decided to hang out your own shingle back in your hometown. At first, the bulk of your business involved closings and other real estate transactions. Because the town had been mostly farmland for a century, your practice thrived, since there were many new homes popping up and there was strong demand for a sharp attorney (legal advisor) who know the real estate market. The growth of the residential population enticed several new small businesses to set up shop in the area, so you soon brought two new attorneys into the practice: one who could help with the backlog of residential and commercial real estate closings, and another who specialized in legal services for small businesses. Over the next decade, your firm became one of the best known and most successful in “town” which now had more than 100,000 citizens (customers). During the last 2 years, however, business had slowed dramatically. This is puzzling. After all, the town has never been stronger economically, as three fortune 500 companies have moved major operations into the town, providing thousands of new jobs. The expanding presence of those companies has attracted younger people, both single and married, into the community, and you’ve been assuming that the influx of new homeowners would send your real estate business soaring. That’s not happening. These newcomers aren’t approaching your firm for legal services, whether real estate related or otherwise. To help to get to the bottom of this mystery. You meet with your two fellow attorneys to discuss the situation. None of you can figure out what’s going wrong. After all, your firm has been on the top for years, and it has undeniably established the reputation of being the best around in real estate law. But business continues to fall off – so dramatically, in fact, that there is not enough work for all of you. Reluctantly, you let one of the other attorneys go. You know that unless things improve soon. You will be forced to let the other one go as well.

•	What has happened? •	What accounts for the drop-fall in business? •	What do you do?

now its solution::::

The firm got in trouble because you and your partners failed to heed the seismic changes that were transforming your community. For years, your law firm thrived on real estate closings and providing legal counsel for small businesses. In the first years of the practice, you responded to needs of the community by adding attorneys who could address those specific needs. In recent years, however, your firm hasn’t kept up with the changes that were taking place in your town. The three large corporations that came to town altered the area’s demographics, and, along with it, the type of legal services the community required. Those changes made your firm almost irrelevant, and because you looked to the other attorneys inside the firm rather than to the marketplace, you didn’t understand what was happening. For example, while some of the younger people who moved into the area bought homes, most of them rented apartments, which diminished the town’s need for attorneys who could handle closings. When these young singles started getting married and setting up households, they sought out firms that could handle wills, prenuptial agreements, and similar legal needs. Your firm was not prepared to offer the kind of specialized services. Furthermore, the surge in the town’s business activity was accomplished by an increase in workers compensation claims, one more specialty your firm did not offer. Ironically, your firm’s success was a chief contribution to its downfall, it was at the top for so long that you stopped doing the things that got you there. Your biggest sin was thinking that you had all the answers. You held internal meetings, rather than focus on the marketplace. Had you focused on the needs of the community, you and your partners would have recognized the shifting environment.

A Manager would have made sure that the firm was well informed about the changing needs of the community. He would never have stopped thinking about ways to solve people’s problems, even if that meant replacing attorneys who were unable to do so.

•	We start with a customer’s business problem, and work back to the right combination of technology and expertise. (Lou Gerstner, Former CEO, IBM)