Garrigues celebrates the first anniversary of its ideas lab with an internal hackathon

06 / 21 / 2018

The first phase of the Garrigues Innovation Think Tank ends with a brainstorming session on client communication

Garrigues has held a hackathon to celebrate the first anniversary of the Innovation Think Tank, an internal ideas lab created to channel the innovative efforts of the firm in a collective way. Around one hundred people from several of the firm’s offices, both national and international, and with different responsibilities, nationalities and ages, worked in teams on the same challenge: to come up with innovative and efficient ways of communicating with clients.

The Thinkathon, as dubbed by Garrigues, was the perfect end to the first phase of the Innovation Think Tank, which has generated numerous initiatives. The seven Innovation Think Tank teams developed their ideas during an intensive day-long session, in which they put into practice the design thinking techniques learnt. The Thinkathon ended with each team given five minutes to present their idea to the panel, made up of lawyers from the firm.

The ideas presented centered on using technology to offer clients a complementary experience to face-to-face meetings. The use of video, podcasts and interactive technologies, the tailoring of channels, and the possibility of better measuring client relations were among some of the solutions present in the projects.

Garrigues’ executive chairman Fernando Vives highlighted at the end of the day that these types of initiative are extremely important as part of the ongoing evolution of the firm, and he expressed his thanks to the professionals for their participation and for being drivers of change. With a view to the next phase of the Innovation Think Tank, which will begin after the summer, “the ideal situation would be to end up involving all 2,000 people at the firm”, he explained.

During the first year-long phase, the seven teams taking part −made up of a total of 112 individuals− have tackled three different challenges, all related to the client experience at the firm. Around fifty initiatives were generated from the first two challenges, relating to solutions to improve processes, mechanisms to automate routine tasks, ways to enhance client service and means of strengthening other services. The firm has been studying −and continues to study− these ideas, many of which have formed the basis of new projects, often being combined with other initiatives or adapted to other tools.