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Moving from wet ink deals to life in the cloud

E-signature software firm DocuSign represented global property and casualty insurer AIG in switching to digital processes for its 1,500 associated law firms.

The AIG documents were clearly sensitive in nature and complex to manage, according to account executive Oliver James, who spoke at a webinar this morning (3 June) entitled Adapt Your Manual Legal Processes For Virtual Working.

Insuring more than 98% of Fortune 500 companies, AIG’s legal operations arm manages relationships with approximately 1,500 law firms, and it also represents a large number of its corporate clients legally.

Streamline processes

AIG’s manual paper-based process was difficult to track and implement, which is why they wanted to digitise the entire process in order to scale, secure and streamline their legal-services processes, Mr James explained this morning.

Cost savings for AIG as a result are estimated at US$1 billion in aggregate since mid‐2012, and US$200 million per year in savings since 2015.

AIG says it has saved time, not only in paper and shipping costs, but also in employee time.

The insurance giant also saw a tenfold increase in document security, Oliver James said this morning.

DocuSign offers a suite of applications and integrations for automating and connecting the entire legal-agreement process through the cloud.

Market development manager Philip Callan told Gazette.ie: "As Irish companies adapt to the work from home environment, they are increasingly looking at ways of digitising old paper-based workflows in HR, legal, sales and across the business.

"Large Irish companies such as AIB and Mercury Engineering, and smaller start-ups such as Solgari, are using DocuSign to speed up their contract processes with eSignature and contract management."

Repository 

At the webinar, DocuSign explained that its “agreement-cloud” repository, which eliminates paper, automates the agreement-generation process and connects to data from other systems already in use.

The agreement can be sent, tracked and signed anywhere, using an e-signature app.

Contract scan

Artificial-intelligence tools then also scan contracts for “hidden opportunities and risks”, the company says.

Specific clauses in any agreement can be tracked to establish whether they have moved away from standard terms and conditions, the webinar heard.

Alerts can also be set up for when contracts need to be extended, with an automated  reminder sent out ahead of time.

DocuSign is an official trust document provider recognised in the EU, but it recommends checking its website legality guide, for geographical details.

The software supports up to 40 languages and can also be used for human resources’ documents that employees need to sign.