Visualizing Key Performance Data with Tableau at Kennedys Law 

Case study

Kennedys is an international law firm specializing in litigation and dispute resolution, primarily for the insurance, reinsurance and liability sectors. Having identified a number of key performance indicators such as cash collection and billing, Kennedys were keen to engage the partners with a visual analysis of performance against target on a daily basis.

The Vision

To replace separate manual reports with a consolidated online performance report, updated daily, highlighting achievements against agreed targets for identified KPIs. To additionally enable each partner to drill down easily to sector, team and individual fee earner and build a tailor-made picture of the performance in their area of responsibility.

Delivering the Vision

Using the power of Tableau, Thorogood delivered a proof of concept that showed Kennedys how performance against critical metrics could be visualized in a clear and meaningful way.

The proof of concept was very successful and led to Thorogood developing interactive Tableau Business Intelligence dashboards to present KPIs and targets on a daily basis. Partners are able to view performance on a cumulative basis and compare with previous periods. They can also drill down to analyze results across multiple business views including sector, team and individual fee earner.

The system provides a valuable perspective on the business to senior stakeholders. With go-live in January 2014, the solution is currently available to all UK and senior international partners on a daily basis. The CEO uses it daily and the Finance Director uses it to draw individual partners’ attention to areas of concern within their teams’ performance against target and work in progress.
Kennedys management are delighted with the results:

Working with Thorogood helped us determine how best to utilise the power of Tableau. Their expertise and experience combined with an inherent understanding of the professional services business model enabled us to quickly move from concept to pilot and onwards to production quality performance reporting across the firm.

Adrian Walker, IT Project Manager 

Next Steps

The dashboards will be rolled out and additional KPI’s will be added to existing dashboards to increase the users understanding of the business. Kennedys are also keen to explore other areas of the business where Tableau could be useful to help managers monitor and control performance.

Find out more

Contact Andy Lazenby.  Andy is a Data & AI Consultant at Thorogood.