Genesys Handles Rapid Growth with Ease Using the DocuSign Agreement Cloud

Today, virtually every brand is feeling the pressure to double down on digital and reimagine the customer experience. Genesys, a global leader in CX and call center solutions, helps companies deliver personalized experiences at scale to meet the evolved expectations of the always-on customer. As COVID-19 rocked the business world to its core, the Experience as a Service pioneer saw record-breaking growth—with hundreds of new customers, new product offerings and expanded deal sizes. Facing steady growth and a suddenly remote workforce, the company was looking to revamp its contract management processes—and fast.

 “The business realized that if we kept growing at the current pace, it would have been challenging to do it in an organized and scalable way without having a robust contracting system,” said Jaime Borja, global leader of legal department operations.

Using DocuSign CLM+, Genesys streamlined the contract lifecycle from preparation through signature while giving sales, legal, procurement and finance teams valuable insights into their agreements.

Designing a strategic approach for a successful rollout

With a globally dispersed workforce, Genesys knew that successfully implementing DocuSign CLM+—during a pandemic—would require a well thought-out plan. The company began by building a small, agile implementation team with stakeholders from key business units the solution would impact, including IT, legal, sales, finance and procurement.

To accelerate the process, the team turned to strategic consulting experts at Morae Global Corporation, a DocuSign Platinum Systems Integrator (SI) Partner. “Engaging the experts played an important role in our efficiency—and helped us execute a seamless transition,” said Borja. Working together, the teams used a project checklist to analyze current contract processes, identify the most critical contract types and configure templates.

For the rollout to end users, Genesys developed a phased approach, first automating commonly used sales contracts for quick wins. “Rolling CLM+ out in three months for hundreds of account executives was no small task, but we got it done,” said Sonu Nayar, director of IT, HR and legal applications. “We came in under budget and comfortably hit our target.”

In addition to breaking the rollout into more manageable pieces, the phased approach enabled the team to learn from its experience and iterate on future phases. A few months later, phase two expanded the DocuSign rollout to automate procurement and real estate contracts and expand functionality for additional sales contract types.

Taming contract complexity

Since Genesys was already using DocuSign eSignature to automate contract signing, DocuSign CLM+ was the natural choice to streamline contract processes. Its tight integration with Salesforce was also a big plus—enabling the company to increase speed in its sales cycles while keeping account executives in the tool they’re comfortable with.

Previously, the company was working with a single process for all contracts. That process included multiple handoffs, tasks and tools that weren’t designed for contract management.

With CLM+ in place, Genesys has a unique, automated workflow for each contract type. Now, sales users can initiate proposals and contracts directly from the opportunity in Salesforce and automatically submit them to the right people for review with a single click.

“Today, we have a standardized process—from start to finish—that allows AEs to see where their documents are in the process (instant tracking), reduces the back and forth, and helps them close deals faster and smoother,” said Corey Bischoff, SVP of global sales operations.

Once contracts are signed, they’re attached to the Salesforce record and stored in a central, searchable repository for easy access. Stakeholders are immediately alerted about significant lifecycle events like upcoming renewals—and reporting can be carried out in a much more meaningful way.

Accelerating turnaround time

In Phase I, Genesys was able to standardize a number of sales contracts, including NDAs, that don’t require legal or finance intervention—helping to significantly reduce turnaround times. “We’ve had some contracts signed in 25 minutes from the time that they were requested,” said Borja. “We want to increase the number of contracts that sales can generate without having to involve other departments.”

For contracts that need to be reviewed, like service orders or data processing agreements, stakeholders can see where they are and who is working on what through approvals, negotiation, signature and management—visibility the company lacked in its old process.

Genesys can also use CLM+ to track key measurements, including the ratio of self-generated contracts by line of business, number of contracts by region or type and current review status. “We have a baseline now and can facilitate more strategic business decisions,” Borja added.

Unlocking valuable insights from contracts

Using DocuSign’s AI technology in CLM+, Genesys extracted key metadata from thousands of legacy contracts as they were migrated into the new CLM system. This not only gave the entire organization visibility into all previously executed contracts for the first time, but also ensured the contracts and insights they contain are more discoverable and reportable.

Users can also now use AI to surface more relevant search results and access key contract data, which has lightened the load on the legal team significantly. “I use the AI in CLM+ all the time,” said Borja. “Someone calls me and says, ‘I need this information.’ They’re anticipating this is a process that will take us a couple of weeks, but now I can just come back in the very same email saying, ‘Here is what you asked for—or here is what you actually need.’”

The tool enables the legal team to monitor the contracting process, track specific clauses and attributes and quickly uncover risks and revenue opportunities through powerful, AI-driven analysis and side-by-side contract comparison.

Finding new wins in every corner of the organization

Today, DocuSign is used for approximately 80% of Genesys’ contracts. In addition to optimizing contracting processes—reducing time from generation to signature by 50-60% overall—CLM+ has made it easy for the company to identify bottlenecks and see where improvements can be made.

Next steps include incorporating a “wishlist of enhancements,” including more templates to further simplify processes. The legal team also looks forward to diving deeper into the data to accelerate deals, improve vendor relationships and generate further insights to make better business decisions.

“Other departments are coming to us to ask if we can include their contracts in our roadmap, so the DocuSign Agreement Cloud has clearly been a success at Genesys,” said Borja. “We’re benefitting from the end-to-end value of a modern agreement system—and it has made a big difference in how we do business,” said Borja.