Along with company growth comes the growth of obligations, and of course risk. That’s why a company starting out as a small local operation and growing into a large multinational soon finds themselves lacking the legal support they need. And then comes the question of how to set up the first legal department and exactly what is required.
A perfect example of a company that faced this dilemma is GNT Group. Starting out as a small family-run operation in 1978, they have gone to become a global market leader supplying food ingredients for colouring purposes to food and beverage companies worldwide.
While enjoying steady growth over the years, it was not until recently that they hired a full-time Legal Counsel. Here’s how newly appointed Legal Counsel, Koen van Holten, accomplished his mission of building a legal department from scratch and reducing the business’ risk with the help of enterprise legal software, Legisway.
Establishing a legal department, from scratch
When Koen first started there was no structured system in place for contracts, compliance, data privacy and corporate housekeeping. He remembers how difficult it was to find documents, let alone provide strategic counsel. It soon became his personal responsibility to establish the company’s first legal department to match the growth they were experiencing and be ready for the next phase.
Using Legisway he got this underway in no time and was able to register legal information for all 20 entities into the system straight away. Now with all his legal information safely stored in one place, Koen can easily locate the corporate data he needs and generate reports with a click of a button. He has been able to give colleagues access to what they need while keeping confidential data safe.
Thanks to the vast capabilities of Legisway, Koen says he is seen by the company as a legal department, even though it is just him. And being scalable, the system will grow with his, and the company’s, needs.