For companies operating several departmental databases, there is the prevalent issue of decentralised contract management whereby contract information is scattered around the business. And should a potential investor come along or a merger takes place, that issue becomes a big problem – especially for the legal department.
This very well could have been the case for Elisabeth Hondius, legal head of biopharmaceutical company, MSD. She recalls how she used to have enough difficulty finding information as it was before her company merged with another. A familiar plight for in-house lawyers everywhere, she says many departments would manage their own contracts, giving her little insight and control.
Then along with the merger came yet another complicated database to compound her own, and it became clear that a single cloud-based solution to manage all the contracts – securely in a central location – was needed.
Here’s why Legisway was applauded by IT as a legal repository and how the company drastically improved contract management to foster better control and collaboration:
Keeping IT happy with a fully secure cloud solution
The business case for implementing Legisway was a no-brainer and the ability to seamlessly merge data onto a fully managed cloud solution meant convincing IT was an easy task. “Since data is stored on Legisway it means no extra work for our IT. Combine that with the cost, top-level data security and positive stories I had heard from other users it was the easiest technology buy we’ve made!” Elisabeth says.
Merging two complicated databases could have been a nightmare, but Legisway made it easy and efficiency has actually increased since the merge. Elisabeth says that in the past she would have to call on paralegals to help with the files, but since seamlessly migrating contracts from her various databases into a single repository, she can do it all herself. “Now, with Legisway, we have over 6000 contracts and it’s so intuitive – I can find anything!” she adds.
Control and collaboration go hand-in-hand with contract management
Thanks to Legisway, Elisabeth has set up a structured way of managing contracts and has given access to department heads. Since different departments do a lot of contracting, with Legisway they do it themselves while Elisabeth stays in control.
Now with contract data at her fingertips and department heads working independently, she can focus on other important areas, like managing risks and opportunities in the contract portfolio. And department heads don’t have the bottleneck issue with regards to getting what they need, saving them time too.
