Sustainability allies: Matt Chapman talks innovation and our CoLab Challenge

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Our “CoLab Challenge ’23”, launched as part of the wider CoLab initiative, took our commitment to innovation to a new level – encouraging people across the firm to come forward with new ideas and pitch them in a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style event. Here, Matt Chapman, Innovation Manager at Gowling WLG, talks about the huge buzz the challenge created, the range of ideas generated and how individuals were recognised for their creativity.

As part of this ‘sustainability allies’ blog series, we talk with individuals from across the firm who are helping to drive our efforts and impact as a sustainably-minded business.

To find out more about our ESG initiatives, take a look at our Sustainability report 2024.

Your name and role at Gowling WLG

Matt Chapman, CoLab Innovation Manager.

Tell us more about CoLab and how the “CoLab Challenge” came about…

The CoLab team is responsible for guiding Gowling WLG in delivering innovative digital solutions, products, services, and business improvements. We foster a culture of innovation and collaborative work practices through our physical and digital CoLab innovation hubs. By bringing people together to think and work differently, generating ideas, and developing solutions to address our business challenges, we are delivering new innovations that provide value to our clients and colleagues alike.

A great example of this was our CoLab Challenge 23, which asked colleagues to put forward their innovative ideas on our digital hub in response to the statement ‘wouldn’t it be cool if…’. The idea to run this Challenge came from the Head of CoLab, Phil Westwood, who’d experienced a company-wide challenge in another organisation and saw first-hand the innovative and cultural benefits of engaging everyone in the organisation to submit and help develop ideas into solutions. For us, it is important that innovation belongs to everyone, as we firmly believe that the best ideas come from where the work is done.

How did the challenge work?

The Challenge had several engaging stages, including a Dragons’ Den, Crowd Voting, and a Gala Awards Dinner.

Initially, the Challenge was posted on our digital CoLab Innovation Hub, inviting everyone at Gowling WLG to share their ideas, collaborate, team up, and vote on their favourite submissions.

This resulted in more than 230 ideas being submitted from across the organisation, which were then reviewed and shortlisted by the CoLab team to eight semi-finalists who pitched their ideas to the Leadership team in a Dragons’ Den style event. The Leadership team selected four finalists, who developed fun and imaginative promotional videos to storyboard and showcase their ideas to colleagues. These videos were made available online for colleagues to view and vote on in order to select the winner.

We then hosted a much-anticipated Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony at the London Transport Museum for all those involved in the Challenge and at which we announced the winners. This was a truly unforgettable experience, inspired by the evening’s keynote speaker, Olympic rowing gold medallist Ben Hunt-Davis, who delivered an engaging talk about his ethos of ‘Will it Make the Boat Go Faster,’ emphasising the importance of team focus, determination, and pushing yourself to achieve extraordinary results.

We then announced the idea and participant winners – including the most engaged person, most creative idea, and most engaged team – received various winners’ trophies, technology/voucher, and experience rewards.

What impressed you from the entries received?

We were impressed by so many aspects of the entries we received. The passion, diversity, and level of engagement across the organisation was evident throughout the Challenge and reflected in the ideas, collaborations, and voting.

While we expected a positive reception, actually experiencing the buzz and excitement during the Challenge highlighted to the CoLab team the collective desire for innovation at Gowling WLG.

What was the winning entry and why?

The winning idea was FINNBOT – an AI chatbot that would automatically answer the various questions and further information requests that the Finance team received on a day-to-day basis from colleagues. It provided an innovative solution that would reduce the time and effort in responding to queries, leading to transformation in the way we could flow such financial information.

Following the initial submission of the idea, its support quickly grew and the team behind it – led by Finance Continuous Improvement Manager, Jerri Birring – developed the concept in several brainstorming sessions at the physical CoLab Innovation Hub, guided by Phil Westwood, Head of CoLab, who brought his and external expertise to really help the team improve their idea.

Has the winning idea been turned into a reality?

Yes, FINNBOT was indeed turned into a reality. In fact, such was the business need for this application during the Dragons’ Den event that the firm’s Chief Financial Officer green-lighted it for immediate development, leading to its release five months later.

Since then, we have developed and added HR Superbot to FINNBOT to provide instant responses to queries relating to HR policies, processes, and procedures, helping to further streamline communication and make efficiency improvements.

What about the other good ideas that were among the finalists?

In addition to the winning idea, the ideas pitched by all of the finalists were taken forward, including: the Business Services Development Programme – a two-year training programme within Business Services that mirrors the legal training programme; Evolve, a revolutionary platform for junior lawyers at Gowling that pairs them with mentors and offers tailored social and learning opportunities; and Saturn, a comprehensive brand protection solution that goes beyond clever tech with integrated legal advice from our award-winning IP team.

In addition to the ideas of our finalists being taken forward, several others have since been implemented, most notably ‘Build My Network’, which made it to the stage of the Dragons’ Den event. This app helps colleagues connect with new people across the firm, making networking fun, easy, and interactive.

What’s next for CoLab and the firm’s focus on innovation?

As we look ahead to CoLab and innovation in 2025, we have a very exciting year planned. We are pushing ahead with our commitment to delivering the power of generative AI by working with our suppliers and start-ups to utilise the latest and greatest in this technology. Our goal is to understand how best to leverage and unlock their full potential for our clients. A key part of this will be our Microsoft Copilot rollout, following the success of our pilot in 2024.

We are also driving innovation through several strategic initiatives – including building on the success of our brand protection service Saturn, developed from the CoLab 23 Challenge. As we onboard new clients and expand into new markets, we continue to utilise the creativity and collaborative efforts that made Saturn possible. In addition, we are launching several Innovation Challenges through the digital CoLab Hub. Through this targeted approach, we will tap into the collective intelligence of our colleagues on a variety of topics across the firm to discover, and collaboratively develop, innovative solutions.