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Telecommunications is one of the most rapidly developing global industries with colossal levels of competition with some of the largest names in tech like Facebook and Google entering the market. For the legal team this competition translates into the ‘need to do their part to support business objectives by focusing on innovation and efficiency in particular’, says Anneliese Reinhold, general counsel at Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (du). Bringing originality to a legal function in the region, du’s team have implemented a formal supplier relationship management framework with a newly appointed law firm panel, resulting in mutual benefits for both the team and the panel members. Legal and regulatory affairs at du are handled by a team of 24 members, 14 of which manage legal and 10 staff with diverse backgrounds ranging from engineering to finance in charge of regulatory affairs. The team has developed a ‘uniquely broad and deep visibility over the organisation’s end to end operations’, which allows them to play a fundamental role in the strategic direction of the company while ‘actively championing ethical values’. The team adopted a formal vision, mission statement and strategy map, based on the Harvard Business School Balanced Scorecard methodology, which has made a significant contribution to their success as a legal function, earning them praise from the region’s legal community. Currently every lawyer contributes up to 20% of his or her time managing one of the Strategic Initiatives (SI) on the strategy map. The effect of these initiatives has been to ‘ensure accountability and focus, which has led to exceptional results far in excess of the team’s initial expectations’, says Reinhold. The du in-house team has attained a Lexcel accreditation from the Law society of England & Wales for the last three years in a row and are the only local organisation of the Middle East and North Africa region to have been awarded such an accolade.