The Secrets to McDonald’s Successful Legal Ops Transformation

iManage recently convened a webinar – in collaboration with our partners Morae – to share the implementation journey of one of our most successful clients, McDonald’s.

The webinar covered:

• Assessing your current state, gaps, and goals
• Developing a long-term vision for your technology portfolio and resourcing model
• Rolling out document management internationally
• Managing change and driving user adoption
• The special sauce for legal ops transformation

Here are a few highlights from what Curtis Batterton, Legal Operations & Global Technology Manager at McDonald’s had to say:

Developing a long-term strategy starts with a vision

According to Curtis, figuring out a strategy and how you manage it “starts with a vision of where we’re supposed to end up. The business environment changes consistently. Especially now, it’s changing even faster with the pandemic.”

“What I do to continue marching to the future state is to think strategically about decisions we need to make now, how those advance us to that long-term goal. That shifts and changes a little every day, and I’m always re-evaluating. The strategy itself doesn’t change. The actual execution of that is super flexible and adaptive.”

Rolling out global document management — iManage, the solution that checks all the boxes

A global business like McDonald's has specific requirements for deploying solutions across the enterprise efficiently and securely.

As Curtis explained, “We didn’t want to spend our time and resources managing IT infrastructure. We wanted to spend our time and resources solving business problems.”

So, Curtis and his team decided a SaaS model was the best solution. It gave them “the ability to deploy systems globally in a more affordable way,” providing flexibility to end-users of when, where, and how they use the systems while delivering the modern working experience they want.

And it shifts the infrastructure maintenance burden away from the Legal Ops and IT teams to the provider.

Once Curtis and his team decided a SaaS solution was right for them, they found a system that met their needs of “better performance, better searching, filing, and easier interaction with documents. And iManage has checked all those boxes.”

“I’ve done a lot of upgrades and a fair number of system conversions, but I’ve never actually had users come to me saying, ’Thank you so much for doing this,’ the week of the deployment.”

“We deployed on Monday, and by Wednesday, I had people already telling me how much time they were saving,” from previously having to do document filing in the evening after meetings were done for the day.

Curtis continued, “part of that success was working with Morae Global, our implementation partner, and iManage, in their delivery of a fantastic tool, really best in class from my perspective.”

And that "special sauce"? Managing change and driving user adoption

When asked how he manages change and drives user adoption, Curtis responded, “Adoption really starts before the project begins.” Then he offered these tips:

1. First and foremost, I do not implement systems unless end-users tell me they want it and can clearly define the problem it will solve.
2. I will only then implement the system with complete buy-in from leadership
3. Over-communicate to the end-users “Why the change”
4. Paint a picture of what ‘their’ future will look like with the new system
5. Keep the user involved and excited to maintain “buy-in.”
6. Continuous training and support to keep the system and the “why” top of mind
7. Use leadership to push accountability and adoption – this is a big deal and crucial in a Corporate context.

Watch the webinar recording in its entirety to learn more and hear about the special sauce to McDonald’s Legal Ops transformation.