Barry Wilkinson (author)

Last updated

Barry Wilkinson
Born (1953-09-22) 22 September 1953 (age 71)
Rochdale
NationalityBritish
EducationBolton School (Boys' Division) (Left 1970), Sheffield University (Dates 1971 to 1975)
Occupation(s)Author, speaker, management consultant and business coach
Website www.wilkinsonread.co.uk

Barry Wilkinson is a British author, [1] [2] speaker, [3] management consultant and business coach who specialises in helping Law Firms. [4] [5] [6]

Contents

Early career

Barry's early career was spent as a cost and management accountant in the glass and motor industries. He then joined RTZ (now Rio Tinto) as an internal consultant, before acting as finance director in the turnaround of problem subsidiaries in manufacturing and service sectors. He founded Wilkinson Read & Partners as a cost-reduction consultancy in 1993. By chance, several of the early clients were law firms, though through the 90s the client base grew to include major organisations in Financial Services, Retail as well as professional services. In this period, his work at Bradford and Bingley won third place in "employee communication of the year". [7] [8] [9]

Since 2002 Barry and Wilkinson Read have focused exclusively on helping "human sized" Law firms become more successful. This not only means improving Financial Performance, but also developing the firm and its people so that both staff and clients are more satisfied. [4] [10]

Some of Barry's more innovative approaches to Performance improvement have their roots in the "World Class Manufacturing" movement which came from Japan to simultaneously improve quality of products and services, whilst dramatically reducing costs and wastage. [4] [11]

Current career

An example of this is his approach to cash-flow management, which focuses relentlessly on time elapsed, leading not only to greatly reduced borrowings, but also to improved client satisfaction, and reduced complaints. [12] [13]

More recently, he has enhanced this approach to help fee earners develop the additional skills and confidence to handle client conversations – increasing their perceived value to the client and addressing the other source of Client complaints, Poor communication. [12] [14]

In 2015 he introduced the concept of "beyond benchmarking". Whilst many law firms measure their performance by peer comparison, using benchmarking surveys to rate themselves, new entrants to the legal sector who have a financially driven agenda see opportunities to achieve much more, using techniques from other sectors in which they operate. After analysing the financial management approaches used by some of these entrants, Barry uses these in a programme to enhance potential and actual results. [5] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]

Books

Related Research Articles

Corporate governance refers to the mechanisms, processes, practices, and relations by which corporations are controlled and operated by their boards of directors, managers, shareholders, and stakeholders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Construction</span> Process of building or assembling a building or infrastructure

Construction is a general term meaning the art and science of forming objects, systems, or organizations. It comes from the Latin word constructio and Old French construction. To 'construct' is a verb: the act of building, and the noun is construction: how something is built or the nature of its structure.

Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons, including gaining external advice and accessing consultants' specialized expertise regarding concerns that call for additional oversight.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Factoring (finance)</span> Financial transaction and a type of debtor finance

Factoring is a financial transaction and a type of debtor finance in which a business sells its accounts receivable to a third party at a discount. A business will sometimes factor its receivable assets to meet its present and immediate cash needs. Forfaiting is a factoring arrangement used in international trade finance by exporters who wish to sell their receivables to a forfaiter. Factoring is commonly referred to as accounts receivable factoring, invoice factoring, and sometimes accounts receivable financing. Accounts receivable financing is a term more accurately used to describe a form of asset based lending against accounts receivable. The Commercial Finance Association is the leading trade association of the asset-based lending and factoring industries.

A layoff or downsizing is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or, more commonly, a group of employees for business reasons, such as personnel management or downsizing an organization. Originally, layoff referred exclusively to a temporary interruption in work, or employment but this has evolved to a permanent elimination of a position in both British and US English, requiring the addition of "temporary" to specify the original meaning of the word. A layoff is not to be confused with wrongful termination.

A consultant is a professional who provides advice or services in an area of specialization. Consulting services generally fall under the domain of professional services, as contingent work.

Engineering management is the application of engineering methods, tools, and techniques to business management systems. Engineering management is a career that brings together the technological problem-solving ability of engineering and the organizational, administrative, legal and planning abilities of management in order to oversee the operational performance of complex engineering-driven enterprises.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McKinsey & Company</span> US-based worldwide management consulting firm

McKinsey & Company is an American multinational strategy and management consulting firm that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. Founded in 1926 by James O. McKinsey, McKinsey is the oldest and largest of the "MBB" management consultancies (MBB). The firm mainly focuses on the finances and operations of their clients.

Design–build, also known as alternative delivery, is a project delivery system used in the construction industry. It is a method to deliver a project in which the design and construction services are contracted by a single entity known as the design–builder or design–build contractor. It can be subdivided into architect-led design–build and contractor-led design–build.

Professional services are occupations in the service sector requiring special training in liberal arts and pure sciences education or professional development education. Some professional services, such as architects, accountants, engineers, doctors, and lawyers require the practitioner to hold professional degrees or licenses and possess specific skills. Other professional services involve providing specialist business support to businesses of all sizes and in all sectors; this can include tax advice, supporting a company with accounting, IT services, public relations services or providing management services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Law Society of Singapore</span> Singaporean professional association for lawyers

The Law Society of Singapore is an organisation which represents all lawyers in Singapore. The Law Society of Singapore is a law society and is analogous to what is called a Bar Association in many countries and should not be confused with the Singapore Academy of Law.

SME finance is the funding of small and medium-sized enterprises, and represents a major function of the general business finance market – in which capital for different types of firms are supplied, acquired, and costed or priced. Capital is supplied through the business finance market in the form of bank loans and overdrafts; leasing and hire-purchase arrangements; equity/corporate bond issues; venture capital or private equity; asset-based finance such as factoring and invoice discounting, and government funding in the form of grants or loans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Business failure</span>

Business failure refers to a company ceasing operations following its inability to make a profit or to bring in enough revenue to cover its expenses. A profitable business can fail if it does not generate adequate cash flow to meet expenses.

Corporate services or business services are activities which combine or consolidate certain enterprise-wide needed support services, provided based on specialized knowledge, best practices, and technology to serve internal customers and business partners. The term corporate services providers (CSPs) is also used.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mouchel</span> UK business services company

Mouchel Group, originally known as L. G. Mouchel & Partners Ltd, was an infrastructure and business services company headquartered in Woking, United Kingdom. It provided advisory, design, project delivery and managed services associated with infrastructure and business services across the highways and transportation, local government, emergency services, property, health, education and utility markets across the world.

In the period September 2007 to December 2009, during the Global Financial Crisis, the UK government intervened financially to support the UK banking sector, and four UK banks in particular.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bain & Company</span> Global management consulting firm

Bain & Company is an American management consulting company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm provides advice to public, private, and non-profit organizations. One of the Big Three management consultancies, Bain & Company was founded in 1973 by former Group Vice President of Boston Consulting Group Bill Bain and his colleagues, including Patrick F. Graham. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the firm grew rapidly. Bill Bain later spun off the alternative investment business into Bain Capital in 1984 and appointed Mitt Romney as its first CEO. Bain experienced several setbacks and financial troubles from 1987 to the early 1990s. Romney and Orit Gadiesh are credited with returning the firm to profitability and growth in their sequential roles as the firm's CEO and chairman respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alvarez and Marsal</span> Global professional services firm

Alvarez & Marsal Holdings, LLC (A&M) is a global professional services firm notable for its work in turnaround management and performance improvement of a number of large, high-profile businesses both in the US and abroad such as Lehman Brothers, HealthSouth, Tribune Company, Warnaco, Interstate Bakeries, Target, Darden Restaurants and Arthur Andersen.

The legal services sector of the United Kingdom is a significant part of the national economy; it had a total output of £22.6 billion in 2013, up from 10.6 billion in 2001, and is equivalent to 1.6% of the country's gross domestic product for that year. The sector has a trade surplus is £3.1 billion in 2013 and directly employees 316,000 people, two-thirds of whom are located outside London. The UK is the world's most international market for legal services. It allows virtually unrestricted access for foreign firms, resulting in over 200 foreign law firms with offices in London and other cities in the UK. Around half of these are US firms, with the remainder mainly from Europe, Australia and Canada. The UK legal market has a strong global position due to the popularity of English law. Some 27% of the world's 320 legal jurisdictions use English Common law.

Helen Molyneux is a Welsh lawyer who founded and was the CEO of the UK personal injury law firm NewLaw Solicitors.

References

  1. 1 2 Barry Wilkinson (Author). Cash Flow Management for Law Firms: Amazon.co.uk: Barry Wilkinson: 9781783580798: Books. ASIN   1783580798.{{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  2. 1 2 "Cash Flow Management for Law Firms, 2nd Edition". Ark Group. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  3. ↑ "Event summary – the Law Society". Archived from the original on 25 January 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 "Wilkinson Read Specialist Consultants to the Legal Profession: Who we are". Wilkinsonread.co.uk. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  5. 1 2 "Meet the Law Management Section committee | FAQ | Communities – The Law Society". Communities.lawsociety.org.uk. 21 October 2014. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  6. ↑ "Practical Law". Uk.practicallaw.com. 30 June 2016. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  7. ↑ "Membership Directory | Institute For Turnaround". The-ift.com. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  8. ↑ "Bradford & Bingley car scheme hands employees tax break. (getting rid of company cars)" Employee Benefits, September 1, 2000
  9. ↑ "Open season | Feature | Communities – The Law Society". Communities.lawsociety.org.uk. 13 August 2013. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  10. ↑ Wilkinson, Barry (12 February 2014). "Cash in hand | Feature | Communities – The Law Society". Communities.lawsociety.org.uk. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  11. ↑ "It all adds up | Feature | Communities – The Law Society". Communities.lawsociety.org.uk. 12 February 2014. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  12. 1 2 "Find a CIMA accountant". Cimaglobal.com. 27 January 2015. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  13. ↑ "Fund of information | Feature | Communities – The Law Society". Communities.lawsociety.org.uk. 10 February 2016. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  14. ↑ Bennett, Paul (3 November 2015). "Balancing the books | Feature | Communities – The Law Society". Communities.lawsociety.org.uk. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  15. ↑ "Association of Partnership Practitioners & professional service firms". App.org.uk. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  16. ↑ "Professional Speaking Association – Speak More, Speak Better". Thepsa.co.uk. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  17. ↑ "KPI and Big Data Experts | Advanced Performance Institute". Ap-institute.com. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  18. ↑ "Legal & CPD Training Courses from Central Law Training". Clt.co.uk. Archived from the original on 21 April 2016. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  19. ↑ Otterburn, Andrew (27 November 2014). "Webinar: Survive and thrive – growing your law firm in a competitive market | Event | Communities – The Law Society". Communities.lawsociety.org.uk. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  20. ↑ "Is less more? | Feature | Communities – The Law Society". Communities.lawsociety.org.uk. 15 February 2015. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.