Introduction to Discovery (4/7): 13 Questions to Identify Vendors That Japanese Companies Can Use with Peace of Mind

"Introduction to Discovery (2/7): Three essential questions for selecting a discovery venterI mentioned the conditions for a discovery vendor that is suitable for a Japanese company, but there is an easier way to "determine" it.It asks potential vendors for their discovery experience.

It goes without saying that "know-how accumulated from experience" will be of great help to future business development in any industry.Experience points are very important, especially in discovery.This is because discovery has different contents for each case, so the required skills and responsiveness also change for each case.

Even if the vendor has high-precision software, if the person in charge of using it is not good at discovery procedures and management, the client will be forced to do unnecessary work and the efficiency of discovery itself will be reduced. It will be more and more expensive.

So what questions should we ask to measure vendor experience?

Ask what kind of company and what kind of project you worked on, both domestically and internationally.The number of achievements we have made will be used as know-how, leading to low-cost, high-quality discovery support.It can be said that the large number of achievements is an important point.

If you are involved in the discovery of various companies, you will experience one or two accidents and obstacles.Discovery projects always require customization, as data storage methods and software used vary from company to company.Therefore, listening to the background of an accident or failure can be used as a guide to measure the technical capabilities of the company, and the accident or failure experienced can be considered as the experience value of the vendor.

By knowing what the vendor thought and what measures were taken to resolve the accident, it is possible to measure the vendor's ability to respond to troubles.Also, from there, you can naturally see a sense of responsibility.

It is also essential to see the final result.Depending on the project, the delivery date may have to be extended, or additional costs may be required due to the increase in man-hours.By knowing the person in charge's way of thinking about such results, it is possible to estimate the values ​​of the vendor.

Even if you have a track record of various discoveries in the United States, it seems unfortunate that you have no track record in Japan. The idea that "discovery is a US system, so US vendors have an advantage" often does not apply to Asian companies, but rather has a good understanding of Japanese organizations, corporate customs, work styles, etc. Vendors should be far less stressed by legal staff.Don't forget to check how well the vendors who are candidates for contracts understand Japanese and Japanese business culture.

If the vendor doesn't have any of its own suggestions, it's likely that they're only using off-the-shelf tools or just an agency that sells discovery tools, and they're subcontracting "Maru." It could also be a "throwing vendor".Vendors who can't differentiate themselves from their competitors in any business are unreliable.

If you don't get a satisfactory answer to the six questions so far, you shouldn't rush to sign a contract.If you search carefully, you will surely find the ideal discovery vendor.

Vendor selection should be done carefully because we are busy dealing with proceedings and have no time.With just one vendor selection, the cost and time required for discovery will change significantly.

If you're satisfied with the questions so far, then you need to make sure that the vendor's service content suits your needs.Here are some questions to help you confirm that.

Even now that globalization has progressed, there are still business customs unique to Japan.Also, even in the same Japan, the corporate culture, workflow, and how to write documents differ depending on the company.Choosing a vendor that understands these circumstances will help you get the job done.Vendors who design and operate discovery support systems and services by Japanese staff and make daily improvements are considered to understand Japanese corporate culture.

Asian languages ​​such as Japanese have more character types than English, and include kanji, hiragana, katakana, arithmetic numerals, Chinese numerals, and English words.Also, since it is not done to separate words, technology is required to search correctly.This "technology" includes the accuracy of the search engine installed in the system as well as the experience value of the engineer (discovery operator).For example, what kind of keyword is used for keyword search is basically examined under the supervision of a lawyer, but engineers who have a lot of discovery experience have more know-how. It may be.

Also, because there are many character codes in Japanese, garbled characters are likely to occur (almost never in European documents), and some vendors and lawyers say that "Asian languages ​​are always garbled". ..However, garbled characters can be reduced to almost zero by properly preparing for analyzing Japanese.

If garbled characters occur, you will not be able to proceed with the review work.

Vendors with low technical and Japanese processing capabilities sometimes perform a work called "Tiff burning" that unbelievably converts the original data into an image and processes it in order to deal with such troubles. Will require a lot of time and enormous cost, which would otherwise be unnecessary (see Introduction to Discovery 6/7 for details).

Therefore, I would like to confirm what kind of measures the vendor is taking to prevent garbled characters and analyze Japanese correctly.

When the amount of data is huge, it is common to use online evidence viewing tools for discovery work.Vendors who can consistently provide these services will reduce mistakes, speed up, and reduce costs.

However, if you do not provide such services in-house and outsource only that part to other companies, this means that important litigation data will be passed on to a third party (company) who does not know at all. To do.Therefore, it is essential to check whether the cloud service is provided and whether the vendor itself supports it.

If you are hosting data overseas, you need to carefully judge your transactions from the perspective of information security.This is because the risk of information leakage inevitably increases when sending data overseas.

If the questions 9 and 10 do not apply, it means that the data processing equipment is only available at other companies and overseas, and the risk of data leakage increases.Even if the person in front of you declares that it is okay, it is not the person who actually handles the evidence data, but someone who does not know other than the person who asserts that it is okay.

This is self-explanatory.The key to the success or failure of a project is the project manager.In discovery, the amount of evidence required and the submission format differ for each case, and unexpected troubles always occur.Unless an experienced person is the project manager, it is not possible to deal with those troubles accurately.

There is a time difference between Japan and overseas.Once the discovery process has begun, sending an email and replying after 12 hours will not make a phone call, so speed cannot survive the discovery of life.Whether it is possible to respond globally and whether the service is provided 24 hours a day is also an important factor to judge.

If you ask the vendor a question like the one above, you can see the quality of service.If you want to explain the features of software such as discovery tools in detail, but the story goes beyond software and systems, for example, the practical know-how required for discovery, it suddenly becomes silent for vendors. Be careful if you encounter it.

It is not a mistake to judge that such vendors do not have accumulated know-how.In that case, it is often better to stay calm and look for other vendors.

Question list

1. Past Experiences
2. Accidents and obstacles experienced in advancing discovery projects
3. Solutions taken to resolve the accident
4. How was the result
5. Achievements of discovery in Japanese companies
6. Do you have your own proposal for the overall discovery method?
7. Is the service design that understands Japanese corporate culture?
8. What are you doing to analyze Japanese documents with high accuracy?
9. Do you support data hosting cloud services in-house?
10. Do you have your own equipment for data hosting in Japan?
11. Do you have a data processing facility in Japan?
12. Experience points of project manager
13. Is the project manager globally assigned (24-hour response available)?

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