News Type: Press Release

The 2023 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report uncovers opportunities for legal departments to maximize their material effect on the business through better collaboration, increased efficiency and smarter technology

HOUSTON, May 10, 2023 — Onit, a leading provider of legal workflow solutions including enterprise legal management and contract lifecycle management, today released the concluding chapters of its 2023 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report. The ELR Report is an annual multinational study spotlighting year-over-year changes in the brand image of corporate legal departments through the eyes of their internal clients, the way legal professionals perceive their interactions with other departments, and the material impact Legal can have on its businesses — from revenue generation and operational efficiency to innovation and corporate culture.

In November 2022, Onit commissioned Provoke Insights, a New York City-based market research firm, to conduct a study of 4,000 non-legal enterprise employees and 500 corporate legal professionals in the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany. The study helps corporate legal teams and executive teams explore ways to improve working relationships, accelerate legal workflows and transform the function’s material role in large enterprises.

While the first chapter of the ELR Report reveals the quality of interactions between Legal and its internal clients noticeably decreasing year over year across every enterprise function — particularly with public-facing, revenue-impacting departments like Sales and Marketing — the latest installment of the report finds that legal professionals are acutely aware that concerns around their responsiveness, communication and efficiency are impacting the quality of their working relationships.

As current macroeconomic distress exacerbates the pressure on all employees to show value by improving operational efficiency amid cost-cutting measures, the need for faster execution and better collaboration with Legal is evident — more than nine in 10 (91%) legal respondents acknowledge that other departments bypass their team because of slow processes or perceived non-responsiveness, even if it means circumventing company policy. This evasion has adverse repercussions. Legal’s enduring image is a trustworthy protector of the business, but ensuring compliance, managing risk, and avoiding liability issues is hampered when employees knowingly bypass legal policies.

The Cost of Modernization: Addressing Legal’s Barriers to Efficiency

More than half (61%) of legal respondents believe their internal clients see them as inefficient because of a lack of communication (51%), too many processes (46%) or poor collaboration (31%). Modernizing operations can combat the perception of inefficiency by enabling faster execution and better collaboration, undoubtedly increasing Legal’s opportunity to positively impact enterprise materiality.

Despite Legal’s desire to evolve into a faster, smarter and more modern partner, the study finds there are roadblocks preventing forward movement. Nearly four in 10 (37%) legal respondents believe a lack of budget for modern solutions is holding them back from providing positive experiences for internal clients, while a similar percentage (36%) cites a lack of technology solutions. Moreover, one in three (34%) believe leadership does not value efficient workflows.

However, when it comes to critical yet time-consuming processes like contract management — where only 22% of legal respondents say contracts are managed efficiently — modernizing workflows can directly address issues related to speed and collaboration. The report found that four in five (83%) companies handle up to 2,000 contracts annually and invest an average of 4.5 hours a day working on contracts, with one in five (21%) legal respondents admitting to spending six to eight hours on contract-related matters every day.

Time to Shine: Legal’s Positive Impact on Revenue Growth and Operational Efficiency

The ELR Report reveals Legal’s opportunity to directly contribute to business growth — six in 10 (60%) legal respondents believe they help Sales effectively negotiate deals and generate revenue. Yet, nearly half (49%) also believe lengthy contract cycles negatively impact deal closure and delay revenue generation (49%). Legal can improve efficiency and influence growth by embracing technology solutions for managing legal operations. Automating tedious parts of the contract negotiation process can expedite the time it takes to execute sales contracts — a welcome change given more than eight in 10 (84%) legal respondents say it takes over a month to execute sales contracts and one in four (26%) admit it can take upward of three months. Inefficiency within the contract management process may also have a negative impact on vendor procurement (43%) and M&A and partnerships (29%).

“The need for every legal department to execute faster and communicate better is clear,” said Stasha Jain, General Counsel of Onit. “The current challenging macroeconomic climate has caused each department to emphasize cost containment, but it’s up to us as legal practitioners to evolve beyond enterprise guardians. Triangulating people, process, and technologies — which includes testing new developments in AI — is fundamental to Legal’s transformation into a more collaborative partner and material business driver.”

Read the ELR Report to learn about the opportunities for Legal to evolve its image from a traditional transactional back-office function to a material driver that impacts business growth, faster revenue generation and operational efficiency.

About Onit
Onit is the leading provider of legal workflow solutions for enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM). Onit’s comprehensive product portfolio customizes AI-driven workflows for managing matters, spend, vendors and contracts. With Onit, companies can evolve the legal department’s role as a business protector and transform it into a business driver that materially influences the enterprise by improving operational and cost efficiency while simultaneously contributing to faster revenue generation and business growth.

The Onit portfolio of products also includes SimpleLegal, AXDRAFT, BusyLamp and SecureDocs. Learn more at onitprostg.wpengine.com.

Media contacts
Mike Nadeau, [email protected]

The OnitX platform tightly integrates with the AI-enabled products of Onit Catalyst to provide business-critical ELM and CLM workflows that empower corporate legal teams to make better decisions faster

HOUSTON (March 20, 2022) — Onit, the leading provider of legal workflow solutions, including enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM), today announced OnitX, the next generation of its configurable platform for automating complex legal workflows, and Onit Catalyst, a family of AI-enabled products purpose-built to transform ELM and CLM.

OnitX evolves and expands capabilities from the company’s original Apptitude platform, optimizing customer workflows across their legal operations spectrum — from managing spend and matters to contract lifecycles and risk. Onit Catalyst provides legal teams with insights at the point of need, enabling them to swiftly make better data-driven legal and contracting decisions and proactively manage their law firm business relationships.

The release and integration of OnitX and Onit Catalyst are purposefully timed. As enterprises operate in uncertain economic times, both help corporate legal departments optimize their operations by addressing three rising challenges: increasing volume and complexity of matters, unclear ROI and changing dynamics between Legal and internal clients.

According to HBR Consulting, in-house legal teams anticipate an 84% increase in demand in the coming year. In addition, new data from Onit’s 2023 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report reveals a decline in the quality of interactions that Legal has with various departments, particularly with revenue-impacting functions. A year-over-year comparison shows a 30% and 27% drop in the quality of Legal’s interactions with Sales and Marketing, respectively.

OnitX and Onit Catalyst support customers to improve internal client experience, optimize spend and increase the efficiency of legal operations at a time when executive teams are searching for new ways to drive growth and EBITDA.

New Integrations and Product Developments Increase Value for ELM and CLM Customers

OnitX gives large, global enterprises flexibility in running its legal operations with a business-critical platform that is configurable, automated, smart and extensible. The OnitX platform seamlessly integrates with Onit Catalyst, a family of AI-enabled products from several recent strategic acquisitions — including Onit’s Precedent and Bodhala — to form ELM and CLM solutions that provide insights at the point of decision.

Several key product developments for the OnitX platform and Onit Catalyst will be demonstrated at Legalweek New York 2023:

• Benchmarking for smarter spend management: OnitX Spend Management’s integration with Onit Catalystenables legal operations teams to make better timekeeper rate approval decisions faster by using external benchmarks versus conducting a time-consuming and expensive separate analysis.
• A complete European ELM solution: OnitX Matter Management’s integration with Onit BusyLamp provides European corporate legal departments with flexible and configurable means to manage legal matter workflows, including outside counsel spend using BusyLamp capabilities designed to address specific European currency, regulatory and tax requirements.
• Smarter contract lifecycle management: Onit Catalyst ReviewAI and Catalyst Contract Extraction help streamline the contract lifecycle pre- and post-signature processes by using AI to review contracts and extract essential data — such as key terms and obligations, dates and other relevant information — to quickly identify contract risks and opportunities.
• Seamless litigation compliance: OnitX Legal Holds Management streamlines litigation compliance management and reduces the risks associated with pending litigation.
• Visual forms builder: Build custom applications powered by the OnitX workflow engine to address simple legal-related requests like invention disclosures, trademark or logo usage and data breach incident reporting.
• Application and data integrations: OnitX leverages scalable technology from Workato, an industry-leading iPaaS technology provider, to integrate with applications such as Salesforce, SAP Ariba and Microsoft 365 so users can work in their preferred tools while data flows into other critical business systems that support revenue and operating expense management.

“Onit’s mission is to elevate Legal’s stature within the enterprise by automating business-critical workflows that drive material impact,” said Scott Wallingford, President of Onit’s Enterprise Business. “With the next generation of our platform in OnitX and key product updates from Onit Catalyst, customers can optimize legal workflows across their entire enterprise — from ELM functions like matter and spend management to CLM functions like contract management and review. Macroeconomic pressure influences enterprise functions to show value in new and visible ways, and we’re partnering with our customers to do just that. Legal’s moment of impact is now.”

Learn more about OnitX on March 20 – 23 at Legalweek New York 2023, where the company is offering live demonstrations of all its ELM and CLM solutions.

Additional Resources
Learn more about Onit’s recent integrations here. For more company news, industry trends and best practices from corporate legal innovators, read the Onit blog and follow us on LinkedIn.

About Onit
Onit is the leading provider of legal workflow solutions for enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM). Onit’s comprehensive product portfolio customizes AI-driven workflows for managing matters, spend, vendors and contracts. With Onit, companies can evolve the legal department’s role as a business protector and transform it into a business driver that materially influences the enterprise by improving operational and cost efficiency while contributing to faster revenue generation and business growth. The Onit portfolio of products includes SimpleLegal, AXDRAFT, Bodhala, BusyLamp and SecureDocs. Learn more at onitprostg.wpengine.com.

Onit’s 2023 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report reveals Legal’s direct impact on business — from sales and innovation to brand and corporate culture — hinges on ability to evolve relationships with internal clients demanding better communication and efficiency

HOUSTON, March 15, 2023 — Onit, the leading provider of legal workflow solutions including enterprise legal management and contract lifecycle management, today released the 2023 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, an annual multinational study spotlighting year-over-year changes in the brand image of corporate legal departments through the eyes of their internal clients. The study reveals the linkage between Legal’s relationship with the business and material impact — from revenue generation and operational efficiency to innovation and corporate culture.

In November 2022, Onit commissioned Provoke Insights, a New York City-based market research firm, to conduct a study of 4,000 non-legal enterprise employees and 500 corporate legal professionals in the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany. The study helps corporate legal teams and executive teams understand areas to improve working relationships, accelerate legal workflows and transform the function’s strategic role in large enterprises.

The 2023 ELR Report reaffirms one of the most prominent findings from its inaugural edition in 2022 — Legal’s enduring image as a trustworthy protector of the business. About four in five (78%) non-legal enterprise employees view the legal department in this light. However, the 2023 report reveals a changing dynamic between Legal and its internal clients. In one year, the quality of interactions noticeably decreases across every function. The decline is most evident between Legal and public-facing, revenue-impacting departments. A year-over-year comparison reveals a 30% and 27% drop in quality among Legal’s interactions with Sales and Marketing, respectively.

Employees Continue to Bypass Legal and Its Policies

According to the 2023 ELR Report, employees are concerned about Legal’s responsiveness, communication and efficiency — or perceived lack thereof. These concerns are further exacerbated by macroeconomic distress and the subsequent pressure on employees to show value by improving operational efficiency amid cost-cutting measures and demands to execute faster. The need for speed and collaboration exposes that legal departments are viewed as slow or non-responsive. Seven in 10 (71%) non-legal enterprise respondents say it often takes days or weeks to receive a response from Legal. For the second year in a row, just two in five (41%) view Legal as efficient. As a result, only one in four (27%) consider Legal a good business partner.

Apparently, enterprise employees are not waiting around. Two in three (67%) admit they bypass Legal and its policies — up from 65% in 2022 — because Legal is overly bureaucratic (31%), slows employee productivity (30%) and does not understand their business needs (23%).

These findings put Legal in a unique position. How the profession chooses to adapt will dictate Legal’s relevance and impact during an uncertain time when businesses are searching for cost efficiency and growth from every corner of their enterprise.

Legal’s Golden Opportunity to Impact Sales, Revenue Generation, and More

Despite nagging concerns affecting Legal’s brand within its businesses, the 2023 ELR Report shines a spotlight on the function’s opportunity to foster better relationships with internal clients. According to the report, greater support through communication and collaboration will not only improve Legal’s image as a good business partner but also contribute to directly influencing enterprise growth and efficiency, particularly amid economic uncertainty.

The study reveals an overwhelming belief that Legal positively impacts multiple revenue-impacting functions around the enterprise, including contract renewals (64%), sales and revenue operations (56%) and deal cycles (51%). This is where Legal’s stellar negotiation skills provide major material impact — three in four (76%) employees acknowledge impressive negotiation skills.

“Legal is at a crossroads — a difficult macroeconomic climate has presented the department with an opportunity to evolve into a better partner and material business driver,” Onit CEO and co-founder Eric Elfman said. “As CEOs and executive teams search for new strategies to achieve greater growth and EBITDA, the 2023 ELR Report spotlights Legal as a relatively untapped resource within enterprise organizations that can add a meaningful and material impact.”

The ELR Report concludes that increasing communication and deepening collaboration will enable Legal to improve its interactions with the business, decrease the frequency in which employees bypass its policies and directly influence materiality, growth and efficiency.

Other key findings that further magnify Legal’s material impact across the enterprise include:

• Enterprise employees believe Legal has a positive effect on corporate brand (61%), procurement (54%) and innovation (48%).
• Six in 10 (60%) acknowledge Legal’s positive impact on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI); 57% say the same regarding corporate culture.
• The most frequent types of interactions with Legal involve contract review and signing (46%), compliance (46%), HR matters (37%) and patents, trademarks, copyright and intellectual property (IP) matters (25%) – fundamental activities that protect and enable its businesses.

To learn more about Legal’s brand image in the eyes of its internal clients, download Chapter 1 of the 2023 ELR Report, register for the ELR webinar, visit Onit at Legalweek New York 2023 or read the 2022 ELR Report.

About Onit
Onit is the leading provider of legal workflow solutions for enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM). Onit’s comprehensive product portfolio customizes AI-driven workflows for managing matters, spend, vendors and contracts. With Onit, companies can evolve the legal department’s role as a business protector and transform it into a business driver that materially influences the enterprise by improving operational and cost efficiency while simultaneously contributing to faster revenue generation and business growth.

The Onit portfolio of products includes SimpleLegal, AXDRAFT, Bodhala, BusyLamp and SecureDocs. Learn more at onitprostg.wpengine.com.

Media contacts
Mike Nadeau, [email protected] 

Onit bolsters ELM offering with new product integrations that increase rate accuracy and drive efficiency across legal business operations

HOUSTON (March 8, 2022) — Onit, the leading provider of legal workflow solutions, including enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM), today announced a set of integrations to its ELM solutions that further incorporate two of its recent acquisitions into its comprehensive portfolio for managing advanced legal workflows. The integrations, which stem from Onit’s acquisitions of Bodhala and BusyLamp in September 2021, optimize legal operations in two key areas — financial benchmarking and localized support for Europe.

The new integrations with Onit Spend Management and Onit Matter Management address three common industry challenges: lack of supporting industry insights at the point of decision, data silos and tool proliferation. Onit Spend Management leverages Bodhala’s comprehensive benchmarks from data that includes more than $47B in legal billings. This provides a breadth of comparison for proposed changes to current timekeeper rates and evaluation of new rates. For European legal departments, the integration of Onit Matter Management and BusyLamp eBilling.Space offers a proven ELM solution with a configurable matter management workflow that eliminates the double entry of matter information. Collectively, these integrations enable sophisticated legal departments at large multinational corporations to make smarter, cost-efficient choices at the point of decision.

Benchmarking for Smarter Spend Management

Onit Spend Management’s integration with Bodhala’s AI-enabled technology pulls data from 200,000+ timekeepers and nearly 9,000 law firms, improving the accuracy of benchmarks and providing germane data points so legal teams always understand the going rate for timekeepers against the context of an individual law firm, the company’s entire panel of law firms and the market at large. By providing insights at the point of decision, legal departments eliminate the need for time-consuming and often costly ad-hoc rate analysis as they now have the unique ability to quickly approve new timekeeper rates resulting from outside counsel promotions, raises or additions to a firm.

A Complete European ELM Solution

Onit Matter Management’s integration with BusyLamp’s legal spend management solution provides a single system of record with specific capabilities for European corporate legal departments. Matters can be created in Onit Matter Management and then synced with BusyLamp with the click of a button for matters where outside counsel is engaged. This offers a flexible and configurable matter approval workflow capability while also leveraging specific currency, regulatory and tax capabilities that Busylamp provides for the European market today, without having to manage legal matters in two different systems.

The integrations with Onit Spend Management and Onit Matter Management will be widely available to customers in July.

“The transformation of legal operations begins with smart, integrated solutions that evolve with your business’ unique needs,” said Scott Wallingford, President of Onit’s Enterprise Business. “These integrations are the first of many we have planned to ensure improved collaboration across Legal and greater access to actionable insights that help make smarter and faster business decisions. At Onit, we are tying together our corporate acquisition strategy and product portfolio’s evolution to help customers optimize their legal operations.”

Learn more about the new Onit Spend Management integration here and Onit Matter Management integration here. Onit is also offering live demonstrations of all its ELM and CLM solutions at Legalweek New York 2023 on March 20 – 23.

Additional Resources

​For the latest company and industry news, legal operations trends and best practices from corporate legal innovators, read the Onit blog and follow us on LinkedIn.

About Onit

Onit is the leading provider of legal workflow solutions for enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM). Onit’s comprehensive product portfolio customizes AI-driven workflows for managing matters, spend, vendors and contracts. With Onit, companies can evolve the legal department’s role as a business protector and transform it into a business driver that materially influences the enterprise by improving operational and cost efficiency while simultaneously contributing to faster revenue generation and business growth.

The Onit portfolio of products includes SimpleLegal, AXDRAFT, Bodhala, BusyLamp and SecureDocs. Learn more at onitprostg.wpengine.com.

New integration with Salesforce and SAP Ariba increase productivity and connect legal workflows more closely to key business departments

HOUSTON, Dec. 8, 2022 — Onit, the leading provider of enterprise workflow solutions, including enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM), today announced a set of feature upgrades to its CLM solution that enrich data analytics and more closely tie contract processes with key stakeholders across the enterprise — from procurement to sales.

Onit CLM’s release addresses two challenging areas of the contract management process: reporting and analytics and system integration. The reporting dashboards leverage AI and data insights to help business leaders minimize risk associated with clause violations, such as force majeure, payment terms and intellectual property from customer-defined contract rules. New system integration with major CRM and ERP systems like Salesforce and SAP Ariba increases efficiencies in critical legal and claims workflows, meeting customers where they work and making work flow seamlessly. In short, the integration with Salesforce and SAP Ariba bring Legal workflows closer to the business.

Onit CLM’s set of newly released features includes:

• Risk Analysis Dashboard: Assess low, medium and high-risk contracts based on customer-defined rules using proprietary AI from Onit.
• Clause Usage Dashboard: Approach clause library management with intelligent visibility into how often clauses are used; allows customers to modify clause libraries based on data and historical actual world actions.
• Salesforce Integration: Give sales teams the transparency to always know the location and status of their contracts within Salesforce, including agreements coming up for renewal.
• SAP Ariba Integration: Enable users to initiate contract workspace creation within SAP Ariba and streamline the flow of supplier data into Onit CLM, reducing data re-entry and improving efficiency.

Applying Onit CLM’s new dashboards and integration to current contract management processes allow users to make real-time decisions about clause violations and new or obsolete contract language while simultaneously achieving seamless data transfer between core business systems to avoid migrating data outside of workflows.

Onit CLM’s risk analysis dashboard is available to customers using Onit’s ReviewAI for contract review and drafting, and clause usage dashboards are available to customers with a Tableau license. The system integration is  available to customers using SAP Ariba or Salesforce, with the Salesforce integration soon available via the AppExchange.

“An end-to-end CLM solution connects legal teams more closely to key business departments such as Sales, IT, HR, Business Operations and more while elevating collaboration, efficiency and productivity across the enterprise,” said Mary Fuzat, VP of Product at Onit.  “By leveraging more AI-powered insights and further integrating with common front- and back-office systems, Legal has the opportunity to empower the business to focus more strategically and efficiently — while still protecting the company.”

Learn more about the new Onit CLM features here.

About Onit
Onit is the leading provider of workflow solutions for enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM). Onit’s comprehensive product portfolio customizes AI-driven workflows for managing matters, spend, vendors, and contracts. With Onit, companies can evolve the legal department’s role as business protector and transform it into a business driver that materially influences the enterprise by improving operational and cost efficiency while simultaneously contributing to faster revenue generation and business growth.

The Onit family of companies includes SimpleLegal, AXDRAFT, Bodhala, BusyLamp and SecureDocs. Learn more at onitprostg.wpengine.com.

Alliance addresses increasing focus on DE&I as more than half (52%) of legal professionals say their department and companies are prioritizing vendor diversity

HOUSTON, Nov. 1, 2022 — Onit, the leading provider of enterprise workflow solutions including enterprise legal management and contract lifecycle management, and JusticeBid, LLC, a minority-owned diversity analytics and outside counsel selection provider, today announced their technology strategic alliance. The strong alliance between Onit and JusticeBid will provide clients with tools to improve the diversity of their outside counsel and other vendors. Specifically, clients can get a better understanding of their current diversity climate and find new diverse options using JusticeBid’s outside counsel selection platform.

Earlier this year, Onit released the Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, a three-part multinational study spotlighting the image enterprise employees have of their legal departments, the way legal professionals see their interactions with internal clients and the material impact Legal can have on its businesses — from revenue generation and operational efficiency to innovation and corporate culture. One of the ELR Report’s key findings highlighted the growing importance of vendor diversity, as half of legal professionals (52%) report their department and companies are prioritizing vendor diversity compared to the 38% whose attention is on diverse hiring initiatives.

The strategic alliance with JusticeBid exemplifies Onit’s commitment to advancing DE&I in the legal ecosystem.

“Given that Onit is a member of the legal ecosystem and with myself being a diverse attorney, we want to help move the needle of change in the legal industry,” said Stasha Jain, SVP and General Counsel at Onit. “By aligning with JusticeBid, Onit further affirms our effort to foster a more inclusive supply chain by better understanding the diversity of outside counsel and supplier diversity programs.”

Together, Onit and JusticeBid can significantly save time and money for in-house legal resources. Onit solutions help corporate legal operations departments easily manage and analyze outside legal counsel spend while JusticeBid optimizes corporate law departments’ DE&I programs by taking on the burden of the complex diversity data tracking of outside counsel.

“When corporate legal departments are looking to staff matters, JusticeBid puts DE&I front and center,” said Omar Sweiss, Founder and CEO of JusticeBid. “The power of JusticeBid’s platform is that it integrates DE&I analytics into a corporate legal department’s outside counsel management program in all types of outside counsel management scenarios — panel refresh, AFAs like time-based or fixed-fees, consolidation, rate review, matter-level, and more.”

Onit has more than 3,000 customers using its ELM and CLM solutions, and over 100 corporations access DE&I data on the JusticeBid platform, which includes data from over 225 law firms and accounts for more than 45,000 attorneys.

About Onit
Onit is the leading provider of workflow solutions for enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM). Onit’s comprehensive product portfolio customizes AI-driven workflows for managing matters, spend, vendors, and contracts. With Onit, companies can evolve the legal department’s role as business protector and transform it into a business driver that materially influences the enterprise by improving operational and cost efficiency while simultaneously contributing to faster revenue generation and business growth.

The Onit family of companies includes SimpleLegal, AXDRAFT, Bodhala, BusyLamp and SecureDocs. Learn more at onitprostg.wpengine.com.

About JusticeBid
JusticeBid, headquartered in Chicago, is a minority-owned diversity analytics and e-sourcing company transforming how companies embed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion into their business operations through data intelligence and transparency tools, and is a founding member of the “Operation Empowering Change” initiative designed to facilitate DEI data collection to support change in the legal industry. Legal operations teams also rely on JusticeBid’s robust RFP/e-auction SaaS technology to save time and money in sourcing legal services, while driving diverse representation on their matters.

Learn more at www.JusticeBid.com.

The Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report finds Legal can fulfill operational and cost efficiencies by proving material impact with technology and AI that modernizes workflows

HOUSTON, Sept. 19, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Onit, the leading provider of enterprise workflow solutions including enterprise legal management and contract lifecycle management, today released the concluding chapter of its Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report. The ELR Report is a three-part multinational study spotlighting the image enterprise employees have of their legal departments, the way legal professionals see their interactions with internal clients, and the material impact Legal can have on its businesses — from revenue generation and operational efficiency to innovation and corporate culture.

In January, Onit commissioned Provoke Insights, a New York City-based market research firm, to conduct a study of 4,000 enterprise employees and 500 corporate legal professionals across the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany. The study helps corporate legal departments understand their brand image through the eyes of their internal clients so they can improve working relationships, accelerate workflows and more effectively impact topline revenue and operational efficiency.

While earlier chapters revealed that internal clients are most concerned about Legal’s operational efficiency — such as responsiveness, speed of execution and resolution — the latest installment of the ELR Report found that executive teams and boards concentrate most on cost efficiency.

Historically, Legal’s spending has not been under the same watchful eye as Sales, Marketing, R&D or Procurement. However, there has been increased scrutiny on Legal’s operational and cost efficiency because of enterprise-wide budget and growth concerns stemming from current macroeconomic challenges of inflation, interest rates, gas prices, geopolitical crises and supply chain issues lingering from the COVID-19 pandemic. And given only one in three (36%) legal professionals admit to being able to measure the return on investment (ROI) for all outside counsel, the quest for accountability is at an all-time high.

To modernize operations, three in four (77%) global legal departments say they integrate artificial intelligence (AI), in some capacity, into their day-to-day processes. But despite this effort, half (47%) admit they currently lack sufficient systems and 46% acknowledge that Legal must do a better job at adopting technological innovation, highlighting the importance of adopting, not just implementing, the right technology. For example, the study found that contract lifecycle management (CLM) solutions contribute to as much as 50% savings on legal spend alone, yet only half (54%) say their contract processes are automated.

While embracing technology within the department can improve operational and cost efficiency, the report also found that greater automation helps Legal directly contribute to the growth of its businesses by increasing revenue and improving sales negotiations. Legal plays an essential part in the speed and success of revenue acquisition, and the biggest opportunity to impact revenue generation relies on a strong link to Sales — nearly seven in 10 (68%) legal respondents believe they help Sales effectively close deals and generate revenue.

“The need for metamorphosis is clear — with global macroeconomic trends introducing risk based on inflation, consumer spending, corporate layoffs and more, it’s critical that Legal puts an emphasis on cost containment in addition to its contribution to revenue generation,” said Brad Rogers, Onit’s senior vice president of strategy & growth and a previous leader of transformation in a large global law department and at other enterprise companies. “Legal’s charter to protect the business, ensure corporate stability and mitigate risk isn’t new. The future of legal is re-envisioning possibility, driving materiality and achieving operational wins.”

Legal cannot be a cog that slows the wheel of the enterprise. The ELR Report found that Legal departments have an incredible opportunity to prove their impact on the business by bolstering revenue, improving sales negotiations and increasing cost and operational efficiency through the adoption of modernized critical workflows bolstered by AI-driven learnings. Purpose-built technologies can expose trends, evaluate performance, develop metrics and establish benchmarks around cycle times, as well as analyze matter portfolios by furnishing dashboard views and robust reporting to track total spend.

Read the ELR Report to learn more about the opportunities for Legal to evolve its image as a protector of the business and materially influence the enterprise by impacting business growth, contributing to faster revenue generation and improving operational and cost efficiency.

About Onit
Onit is the leading provider of workflow solutions for enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM). Onit’s comprehensive product portfolio customizes AI-driven workflows for managing matters, spend, vendors, and contracts. With Onit, companies can evolve the legal department’s role as business protector and transform it into a business driver that materially influences the enterprise by improving operational and cost efficiency while simultaneously contributing to faster revenue generation and business growth.

The Onit family of companies includes SimpleLegal, AXDRAFT, Bodhala, BusyLamp and SecureDocs. Learn more at onitprostg.wpengine.com.

Award-winning product executive cements fast-growing company’s commitment to transforming legal departments into business drivers that materially influence growth and efficiency

HOUSTON, Aug. 02, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Onit, the leading provider of enterprise workflow solutions including enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM), today announced that Burley Kawasaki has joined the company as Chief Product Officer. In this role, Kawasaki will lead Onit’s product strategy and innovation, including managing and executing the company’s vision for purpose-built, configurable solutions that evolve the legal department’s image beyond a back-office function and into business drivers that contribute to faster revenue generation and growth.

The addition of Kawasaki, an award-winning software product executive, comes at a critical time of evolution for the company’s product portfolio as it brings together the technology and solutions from several recent acquisitions — SecureDocs in December 2021, BusyLamp in September 2021, Bodhala in August 2021, AXDRAFT in December 2020, McCarthyFinch in November 2020 and SimpleLegal in May 2019. Kawasaki is the second strategic executive hire in as many months, following the announcement of Scott Wallingford as President of Enterprise Business in mid-June.

Onit’s dedication to technology that modernizes antiquated and inflexible legal workflows is fueled by the findings of the company’s recently released Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, a multinational study spotlighting the material impact Legal can have on its businesses. The ELR Report revealed the legal department’s urgent need for modernization as 47% of legal professionals say their technology is insufficient and 46% admit it’s outdated. A key component of Kawasaki’s role is to lead and facilitate product teams to ensure they deliver high-value, automated and AI-driven ELM and CLM solutions to Onit customers. In doing so, Onit’s solutions will help legal departments directly impact operational efficiency and, ultimately, the speed of revenue generation for their businesses.

“Legal can evolve its role as business protector by dissipating the gap between archaic legal practices and modern digitalization to demonstrate a distinct impact on materiality and efficiency,” said Eric Elfman, CEO and co-founder of Onit. “With his wealth of experience in software product management and a track record of successful consultancy on product strategy for mid- to late-stage startups, Burley will undeniably elevate the sophistication and strength of Onit’s broadening product portfolio.”

“Onit is leading the charge for legal departments to become transformational agents in driving meaningful business results — including topline revenue, innovation, competitive differentiation, brand image, and corporate culture.” Kawasaki said. “Contributing to the metamorphosis of such a critical function with technology solutions purpose-built to extract new opportunities for material impact is invigorating. I am thrilled to join a company dedicated to building and delivering technology that supports and inspires the next generation of law.”

Kawasaki brings a deep history of leadership experience in product management, engineering, marketing and strategic alliances with a specific focus on low-code, cloud, application platforms and enterprise solutions. He comes to Onit as the founder of Tachyon Solutions, a CPO advisory and consulting services firm that focused on serving the product strategy needs of mid- to late-stage startups. Previously, Kawasaki held CPO positions at K2 Software and Kony, where he was responsible for product vision and strategy, product design, product management, software engineering and cloud operations. He also held product management leadership positions at Microsoft, Accenture, Avanade and Interlink. In 2020, Kawasaki was recognized as one of the Top 25 Software Product Executives of the year. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Pacific Lutheran University.

Additional Resources
​​Read and subscribe to the Onit blog for the latest company and industry news. Join us on LinkedIn, follow us on Twitter or listen to our podcasts to hear the latest news on legal operations, artificial intelligence and best practices from corporate legal innovators.

About Onit
Onit is a global leader in artificial intelligence platforms and enterprise workflow solutions for legal, compliance, sales, IT, HR and finance departments. With Onit, companies can transform best practices into smarter workflows, better processes and operational efficiencies. With a focus on enterprise legal management, matter management, spend management, contract lifecycle management and legal holds, the company operates globally and helps transform the way Fortune 500 companies and billion-dollar corporate legal departments bridge the gap between systems of record and systems of engagement. Onit helps customers find gains in efficiency, reduce costs and automate transactions faster. For more information, visit onitprostg.wpengine.com or call 1-800-281-1330.

Onit and its Family of Companies Secure Numerous Awards for Achievements in Innovation, Growth, Thought Leadership and Social Impact

HOUSTON, June 30, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Onit, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise workflow solutions including contract lifecycle management and enterprise legal management, today announced a growing list of significant awards for Onit and its family of companies. The accolades follow Onit’s continued growth, fueled by significant accomplishments that include cutting-edge innovation, industry thought leadership and welcoming AXDRAFT, BusyLamp, Bodhala and SecureDocs into Onit.

“These awards are always exciting news for our customers and invigorating for all of us here at Onit as they validate that we are on the right track for making a positive impact on the industry,” said Eric M. Elfman, CEO and co-founder of Onit. “In just 18 months Onit made four acquisitions, boosted revenue growth and expanded our portfolio of AI-enabled software products as part of our commitment to product innovation. All these efforts were made to ensure we continue to help customers modernize workflows that directly impact the operational efficiency of legal departments and, ultimately, the speed of revenue generation.”

Onit’s top awards this year include:

• American Best in Business, Grand Globee winner: ABB’s highest award, reserved for only 10 companies annually. Onit was named Grand Globee winner for its innovation, expertise and rapid growth.
• Inc. Regionals, #53: One of the fastest-growing private companies in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
  HBJ Vet-owned Business, #1: Houston’s best veteran-owned business.
• American Best in Business, Gold Award for Best Research/Survey Report: Onit was recognized for its Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, which explores the relationship between corporate legal professionals and enterprise employees as a basis for materially influencing the business.
• Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Lifetime Achievement, Eric Elfman.

SimpleLegal, an Onit subsidiary, won the following awards:

• CIO Review’s list of Top 30 Fastest Growing Tech Companies 2022.
• Anggie Ramirez Perea, Head of Client Support, was named Manager of the Year in Business Intelligence Group, 2022 Excellence in Customer Service Awards for her work in leading a customer-centric support organization.
• Shri Iyer, Vice President, Products & Design, was acknowledged by The Software Report as one of its Top 25 Product Executives.

AXDRAFT, an Onit subsidiary, received the following award:

• American Best in Business Gold for Best Product, Service and Solution.

To learn more about the Onit family of companies’ award wins, visit the Onit blog.

To learn more about Onit platforms and products, visit onitprostg.wpengine.com or schedule a demonstration at https://onitprostg.wpengine.com/schedule-a-demo/.

About Onit
Onit is a global leader of workflow and artificial intelligence platforms and solutions for legal, compliance, sales, IT, HR and finance departments. With Onit, companies can transform best practices into smarter workflows, better processes and operational efficiencies. With a focus on enterprise legal management, matter management, spend management, contract lifecycle management and legal holds, the company operates globally and helps transform the way Fortune 500 companies and billion-dollar corporate legal departments bridge the gap between systems of record and systems of engagement. Onit helps customers find gains in efficiency, reduce costs and automate transactions faster. For more information, visit onitprostg.wpengine.com or call 1-800-281-1330.