Gillespie Macandrew Re-brands
Scotsman - 27th August 2007, by Ian Turnbull
The legal profession in Scotland is facing challenging times. The recent OFT recommendations and the imminent deregulation of the legal profession, creating a level playing field between Scotland and England, will firmly confine our current ways of working to the archives.
Tesco Law, Virgin Law, Easy Law; you name it, we can expect it. Organisations with impeccable consumer champion credentials will be all over our business before you can say "so long, closed shop".
Gillespie Macandrew, like many others, welcomes this culture of openness and breakdown of barriers. We believe in open competition and we're certainly focused on serving consumers' interests. But we're not complacent and we're under no illusions that we need to be ready.
That's why we've just invested the best part of £100,000 in a comprehensive facelift (or rebrand as the marketing people like us to call it). We have also invested further with a comprehensive training programme for our people to face the new challenges.
After extensive research amongst staff, peers, existing and potential clients, we have developed a revitalised corporate identity that will allow us to not only weather the onslaught from new providers, but accelerate our growth whilst continuing to deliver a professional holistic offering across our existing client base.
As well as giving us stand-out in an ever crowded marketplace, our re-brand also reflects the
company's expansion and diversification in recent years. The new logo champions our three
key practice areas of law, property and finance.
The research indicated that our public profile has been on the low side and that Gillespie Macandrew is viewed as a ‘traditional' law firm. In reality, the truth couldn't be further removed; hence the new identity.
Our business offering has changed dramatically as a result of five very different acquisitions over the last three years which has retained our Scotland wide services and increased our business exposure to the Edinburgh market. It was important for us that the new identity reflected our aggressive growth and communicated the personality of our business, notably that of Hunters, the recognised and trusted estate agency, that we acquired in 2006.
The re-brand positions the new-look Hunters Residential as a pivotal element of our business, with identical brand identity and design work. Clients of either Gillespie Macandrew and Hunters Residential can be assured of the same high calibre of service, whether using us for property sales or specialist mortgage advice.
Our ability to give independent mortgage advice is again a recent addition to the stable. In June this year, we launched a new financial services division that broadens our existing financial services offering into specialist mortgage and pensions consultancy, whilst complementing the private client department's estate planning, tax planning, trust management and investment capabilities.
This was rapidly followed by the acquisition of Haig Scott, the three partner Edinburgh law firm, which was the springboard for the launch of our specialist housebuilder property team.
This new deal signifies a burgeoning trend of consolidation in the market. With mounting compliance and regulatory issues, the pressures of running a small practice are becoming allconsuming and increasingly small and medium firms are under commercial pressures to merge and focus on niche specialities. By joining a much larger entity, the red tape is no longer an issue for the partners who can get on with the day job.
The net result of all this activity is that Gillespie Macandrew now boasts 22 partners and over 150 people specialising in a range of niche disciplines: from licensing to tax planning; intellectual property to residential property.
This year our turnover is set to smash the £10 million barrier for the first time. A giant step from the £3 million that we recorded back in 2003. At the heart of this success is the people within the company and the clients who have made our business what it is today. In these exciting, but uncertain times, our new brand values of reliability, approachability, vibrancy and partnership are designed to fuel our next stage of growth.
With Clementi in England and pressure to follow in Scotland, consolidation and consumer demand shaping our world, my rallying cry to the profession is to be crystal clear on what you stand for and develop a robust brand that allows you to beat the newcomer consumer champions at their own game. Gillespie Macandrew, for one, is ready to do business in an open shop.