All departments in an organization deal with a multitude of contracts: human resources when hiring new employees, purchasing when integrating new suppliers, marketing when collaborating with a new creative agency. Each of us is constantly confronted with it in our processional life. The list is long and it is not uncommon for each of these contracts to go back and forth several times between the reviewers before getting the final signature.

Without a system behind this process, it is difficult for a person to know who is reviewing the contract and what stage of the process it is in, making it impossible to continue or estimate deadlines. This situation obviously has an impact on the experience of employees and customers, as well as on turnover, as it often prevents the company from continuing to operate until contact has been established. So what should we do? In this article, we explore the opportunities offered by contract automation.

What is contract automation?

Contract automation means the process of digitizing the contract lifecycle. Contract generation, management, and storage can all be automated for a more rational process, with fewer delays and errors, which results in a faster signature.

The benefits of contract automation

• Faster approval

Emailing numerous versions of a contract to different stakeholders for approval and waiting for them to respond to each of them can result in long delays. In addition, it is a very tedious. Contract management automation is increasing the overall efficiency of the process by allowing all parties to review and edit in one place and by sending reminders to those who need to take action. This not only allows your employees to spend more time on other tasks, but also of fProvide the services provided for in the contract more quickly, which increases operational efficiency. For example, the sportswear giant Adidas reduced its approval cycle for sports asset contracts by 87.5%, from 1 to 2 months to just one week.

• Fewer mistakes

The large number of administrative tasks involved in managing contracts manually is often source of errors. Additionally, sending contracts to multiple reviewers may result in loss of version control and missed revisions. Automation thus makes it possible to mitigate errors by reducing human input and data duplication. And when all parties can access and work on a contract in one place, everyone is working on The most recent version.

• Strengthened security

Contracts often contain sensitive information and should therefore be shared safely to prevent this information from falling into the wrong hands. Storing contracts in a central repository allows you to set up protective measures such as passwords and access rights in order to mitigate the risks associated with security threats.

• Better visibility

With contracts in place across the organization, it can be difficult to keep an eye on what you're paying for and whether it's bringing real value to your business. Access to contracts after they have been signed allows you to check whether the conditions agreed in the contract are met and whether they still meet the needs of the organization. Storing contracts in a contractual repository also provides an overview of all agreements in place and can indicate when a contract should be renewed so that you can take a more proactive approach to renegotiation or termination.

An improved employee and customer experience

When they no longer have to spend hours manually sifting through contracts, your employees can focus on tasks with higher added value and more rewarding, which increases their level of job satisfaction. This change in focus allows them to make improvements that will benefit your customers.

About StoryShaper:

StoryShaper is an innovative start-up that supports its customers in defining their digital strategy and the development of automation solutions tailor-made.

Sources: StoryShaper, Bizagi