Deloitte & Touche
The Situation
Deloitte & Touche, one of the nation's leading professional services firms, provides accounting, assurance and advisory, tax and management as well as financial and human capital consulting services through 30,000 staff members in more than 100 U.S. cities. The government relations department of Deloitte & Touche consists of three staff members. Together, they are responsible for lobbying on behalf of the firm, managing their Political Action Committee (PAC), and all legislative research.
"With the collapse of Enron, we had to widen the scope of our tracking and monitoring of legislation. Almost daily, there were numerous bills being introduced that required us to research and analyze the impact of the proposed legislation on the accounting profession," said Courtney Genosi, Senior Consultant at Deloitte & Touche. The government relations staff performs research based on issue and specific questions raised by colleagues and clients. While they are responsible for following and analyzing legislation, it had previously not been in such high volume or on a daily basis.
The Challenge
"When the Enron story hit the news, we were inundated with legislation to cover," said Genosi. "There were five to ten pieces of relevant legislation being introduced per day."
Ms. Genosi is responsible for putting legislative information into a daily update that she sends to the firm's leadership and posts to the Deloitte & Touche intranet, outlining what was introduced and providing a summary of the bills and hearings that affected the firm. "Trying to track proposed legislation with the tools we were using rapidly became an overwhelming task," explained Genosi.
The firm's government relations team is also responsible for analyzing the impact that pending legislation may have on the firm and its clients. The process of legislative research has become increasingly demanding post-Enron with the resulting increase in legislation that affects Deloitte & Touche's interests.
"I needed an assistant and tools that enabled me to closely track all of the bills and hearings I needed to follow," commented Genosi. "We just didn't have the manpower to attend every committee hearing."
The Decision
There is a lot of urgency at Deloitte & Touche to get information as soon as it becomes available. "The Government Printing Office (GPO) would take a few days to publish information, and Thomas [the federal government supported website] takes even longer to put things up on the Web," said Genosi.
"We need a tool to tell us when something is going on in Congress," stated Genosi. "We looked at other solutions and companies, however GalleryWatch provides the easiest tools for identifying and finding the information of value to us. When I looked around at what services were available, there was nothing that could match GalleryWatch's ease-of-use and tailored customization with the 'MyGW' page."
The Solution
GalleryWatch enables Deloitte & Touche to search legislation using key words that might appear in relevant legislation. "I receive timely e-mail notifications and relevant press releases allowing me to better inform the firm and partners on how quickly things are happening in Congress." According to Genosi, e-mail alerts on legislation that Deloitte & Touche is following cuts hours off the workdays for the government relations team and gives them more time to analyze and react to pending legislation.
The GalleryWatch Difference
GalleryWatch is providing Deloitte & Touche with the tools it needs to manage the legislative process. "That's why we really like GalleryWatch," said Genosi. "We are able to get alerts on the legislation we are already following as well as what we need to track. The ability to call GalleryWatch and say that we need something as soon as it is available, and have it delivered to us immediately, is a big advantage."
"With access to the hearing information and press releases on legislation introduced each day," said Genosi, "coupled with the ability to easily reach my account manager, we are always able to quickly get the information we need. I don't know how we could have monitored the issues as closely as we have without GalleryWatch."
About GalleryWatch's Federal Services
Information and services provided by GalleryWatch on the federal level include tracking and searching capabilities on legislation, congressional members and committees, and agencies. Notification capabilities for most services include receiving timely updates via e-mail, text messaging, PDA's, and pagers. Two exclusive services offered by GalleryWatch are Congressional VIP which enables users to effortlessly track and analyze Member voting history and patterns, and GalleryWatch's USBudget service, the most comprehensive source of information on the $2.1 trillion federal budget which offers in-depth analysis and summaries on all the components and line-item program details of the budget. Additional services include committee transcripts, committee reports, and editorial coverage which are available though GalleryWatch's partnerships with The National Journal and Congressional Research Reports which are available through GalleryWatch's partnership with Penny Hill Press.
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