Enhancing Referral Management for a Global Accounting and Advisory Business Network

Ranking 12th in the world, HLB International is a global network of independent accounting and advisory firms. The organization has 795 offices with almost 30,000 employees in 158 countries. In 2020, HLB was recognized as the Network of the Year at the Digital Accountancy Awards. The organization’s ultimate goal is to support clients as they scale to national, regional, or global markets.

In a global business network like HLB, member companies actively recommend each other to their end customers. If a customer hires a member company through such a reference, both the company that brought the lead and the global office benefit from it. Such a referral system helps member companies grow the client network, and HLB benefits from it by gaining international clients that need services in multiple countries.

Since member companies serve thousands of clients and many of the references are spread by word of mouth, keeping track of and managing leads becomes extremely difficult and time-consuming. In daily practice, it may also result in miscommunication and lost opportunities.

With this in mind, HLB collaborated with Brimit to develop a software product for tracking referrals. They needed a solution that would provide transparency and be easy for network participants to manage.

Brimit delivered a system based on Microsoft Office 365 that simplifies sending, receiving, and tracking referrals across a business network. The solution is integrated into HLB’s intranet and catalogue of companies. The referral system features the following functionalities:

• It is now possible to create referrals right from the network catalogue.
• The solution features a dashboard that provides a unified view of sent and received referrals.
• Any member company can send a referral to a fellow partner in the HLB network, specifying the client details or any other important information about a sales lead. 
• It is now possible to track and manage the status of referrals and create a collaboration space for sharing data and communicating on leads.
• The solution helps to manage, verify, and approve invoices in a transparent manner for all the network participants involved in the process. 
• The system allows for generating reports and gaining insights on the revenue brought in by referrals.

Thanks to all the new functionalities, member companies and global offices can be sure that no opportunities are lost.

In partnership with Brimit, HLB developed a system that simplifies and automates referral management. Now, member companies can create, send, and track referrals in a unified dashboard in a matter of minutes. The system provides a transparent view on invoicing and features report generation across the referral ecosystem.