Tata Communications Uses DocuSign eSignature to Cut Contract Turnaround Time

Tata Communications is one of the world’s top communications providers. In fact, over a quarter of the world’s Internet pathways travel through Tata’s network. The company prides itself on being a digital ecosystem enabler, serving both established and emerging markets with a broad range of services including high speed connectivity, collaboration tools, voice services, mobility services and cloud enablement solutions. 

As a global company with offices and customers in more than 30 countries across multiple time zones, one of the challenges Tata faced was efficiently obtaining signatures for legal documents, sales contracts and internal approvals, especially for international contracts outside its headquarters in India.  

Typically, when an international contract was ready for signature, the legal team would send a hard copy with deal approvals to relevant parties using an expensive courier service. Documents then slowly made their way from desk-to-desk and office-to-office as they were signed, and by the time originals reappeared at Tata’s legal department, months had passed. What’s more, throughout this entire drawn out process, Tata’s legal and sales teams had zero visibility into where the contract was in the signature-cycle or when it would come back. This not only meant delays, but also increased the risk of misplaced or permanently lost contracts. The process needed to be modernized in order for Tata to close deals more efficiently.

Choosing an electronic signature provider

When Tata began researching possible digital solutions for managing signatures, contracts and approvals, the company sought a tool that was easy-to-use and would be compatible with the interactive PDF templates that Tata used for contracts. Additionally, Tata needed the technology to offer integrations with its existing technology, like Salesforce and Microsoft Outlook. It also needed to support mobile signing and ensure compliance with global electronic signature laws. 

DocuSign eSignature met all of Tata’s criteria, and the company quickly embedded digital contracting across nearly every department in its company including sales, HR, procurement, IT, and legal.

Decreasing contract turnaround time with DocuSign eSignature

After rolling out DocuSign eSignature, Tata’s legal and sales teams quickly increased the speed at which contracts were signed and completed. “We had no visibility into who had signed or whose desk the contract was sitting on at any given point. Now, with DocuSign eSignature, it’s totally transparent, easy to track and contracts that used to be out for months are now returning to us signed and complete within 24 hours,” said Troy Reynolds, senior vice president, Deputy Group General Counsel, at Tata. 

This improvement in contract turnaround time has helped accelerate business company-wide by reducing time to revenue. What’s more, the reductions in contract cycle time are complemented by significant reductions in courier costs. On average, couriers were costing Tata about $100 per contract, sometimes as much as $150. “With DocuSign, we’ve been able to cut that number substantially—something in the ballpark of a 90% reduction in spend.” 

Misplaced contracts are also a thing of the past—since implementing DocuSign eSignature, 100% of the contracts and documents sent out for signature via DocuSign have been quickly and easily archived in the cloud. 

Today, around 2,500 Tata employees located in various geographies use English, French, and Spanish versions of DocuSign to optimize their business practices.