Archives: News

78% of enterprise employees view the legal department as protectors of the business, yet 65% knowingly bypass legal and their policies due to inefficiency and poor responsiveness

HOUSTON, May 09, 2022 — Onit, the leading provider of enterprise workflow solutions including enterprise legal management and contract lifecycle management, today released its Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, a multinational study spotlighting the image enterprise employees have of their legal departments and the material effects their relationship has on their 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 teams understand their brand image through the eyes of their internal clients so they can improve working relationships, accelerate legal workflows and more effectively impact topline revenue and operational efficiency.

The ELR Report’s findings shed light on the urgency for improving today’s corporate legal environment, revealing a somewhat fractured dynamic between legal and its internal clients — particularly in public-facing, revenue-impacting functions like sales, marketing and procurement.

While the majority (78%) of enterprise employees view the legal department as protectors of the business, two in three (65%) admittedly avoid engaging Legal, bypassing its policies because of perceived bureaucracy, inefficiency, poor responsiveness and a belief that Legal doesn’t understand their specific business needs. However, those same enterprise employees acknowledge the legal department’s critical role in driving growth for the company — three of four (77%) believe Legal is great at negotiating on behalf of their companies and nearly half (48%) say Legal accelerates their sales cycles.

The ELR Report also revealed that only 19% of enterprise employees believe Legal considers client service a priority while eight in ten (79%) do not see Legal as a modern operation. These findings spotlight an enormous opportunity for legal departments to foster internal relationships by improving their responsiveness and operational efficiency, with respondents noting that the reassessment of policies and technology — specifically workflow automation and artificial intelligence (AI) — is needed for legal processes to be more efficient.

“The ELR Report reveals a glaring reality check on the full spectrum of how Legal is perceived by their enterprise organizations,” Onit CEO Eric Elfman said. “The findings beg obvious questions — how aware are corporate legal departments of their brand image, what is the material effect and how strong is their impetus to change? While the ELR Report sheds light on these concerns, it ultimately pinpoints opportunities for Legal to evolve their working relationships, accelerate critical workflows and become more active partners in business growth and efficiency. There is a desire right now for Legal to evolve in impactful ways — their businesses are counting on them.”

Other key findings further magnify the differing views of Legal across the enterprise:

The Legal team’s relationship varies by department — 62% of employees from HR and Finance report positive relations versus only 43% from Sales and 37% from both Marketing and Procurement.
In companies where teams are remote, two in five (38%) say Legal was more responsive prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.
60% believe Legal positively impacts their companies’ brands, but one in five (22%) say Legal is the “No Police.”

Read ELR Report Chapter 1 or check out the Chapter 1 summary.

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.

HOUSTON, March 29, 2022 – Onit, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise workflow solutions – including enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM) – and Randstad Sourceright, a leading procurement managed services provider, today announced they are partnering to help clients create, negotiate and manage the services they procure via Statement of Work (SOW) based contracts.

“Our primary goal is to help clients draft better contracts upfront,” said Scott Brewer, Head of Delivery Excellence within Randstad Sourceright’s Global Services Procurement Practice. “Buying services differs from direct materials since there is an inherent ambiguity in how companies perceive and articulate the value they are paying for. How you structure a contract is therefore an essential ingredient in whether an SOW-based engagement will be judged as successful or not. With Onit’s CLM and AI platform Precedent, we’re introducing a sophisticated tool that will evaluate contract quality and spotlight items of risk.”

“Contracts represent a vital component of any business. Randstad Sourceright’s experts deeply understand what makes a good contract and how our technologies can add value to their clients’ processes,” Matt DenOuden, senior vice president of global sales for Onit, said. “We’re proud to partner with Randstad Sourceright and to help their clients along the pathway to best procurement practice.”

A Thorough Evaluation

Based on a deep scorecard for the ideal CLM solution, Randstad Sourceright undertook a rigorous evaluation of CLM solutions over 11 months.

“Onit ticked all the boxes due to its innovative technology, position and its quality of support,” Brewer said. “Their pre-trained, multi-faceted AI surpasses the traditional ‘find and retrieve’ capabilities of other solutions. It finds an item, analyzes where it is and how it’s phrased and provides an interpretation. As it reviews more contracts and learns more, it only becomes smarter and more efficient.”

Onit’s CLM software empowers teams across the enterprise with end-to-end automation of the entire contract management process. It modernizes the whole contract lifecycle management process through time-saving capabilities, such as contract generation, automated risk mitigation, self-service and a Microsoft Word integration that lets customers work in their typical applications.

Onit’s Precedent is an artificial intelligence platform that reads, writes and reasons like a lawyer. Its mission is to help business professionals get more work done faster during the pre-signature and post-signature phases, increasing the speed to finalize contracts and ensuring the management of obligations after the deal is closed.

Onit and CLM Momentum

This new partnership adds to Onit’s continued CLM momentum. In the short time since Onit launched CLM in 2019, IDC named it a major player, Fortune 500 companies have implemented it for worldwide contract management and awards programs have recognized its role in modernizing contract lifecycle management.

Learn More About the Partnership with This Podcast and at SIG’s 2022 Procurement Technology Summit

Brewer and DenOuden discuss contract management, Randstad Sourceright’s plans for CLM and AI and the impact of these technologies in the latest episode of the Onit podcast. You can also listen to the discussion on Apple, Google Podcasts and Spotify.

On April 5, 2022, Onit’s CLM director Charmel Rhyne and Brewer will discuss How Best-In-Class Organizations Use Integrated AI in Contract Lifecycle Management during SIG’s 2022 Technology Procurement Summit that will take place April 4-6 on Amelia Island, FL. For more information and to register to attend, visit https://events.sig.org/en/2022-procurement-technology-summit-4a3N4zjs92/overview.

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 innovators in corporate legal.

About Randstad Sourceright

Randstad Sourceright is a global talent solutions leader, driving the talent acquisition and human capital management strategies for the world’s most successful employers. We empower companies by leveraging a Human Forward strategy that balances the use of innovative technologies with expert insights, supporting both organizations and people in realizing their true potential.  As an operating company of Randstad N.V. — the world’s leading global provider of HR services with revenue of € 24.6 billion — Randstad Sourceright’s subject matter experts and thought leaders around the world continuously build and evolve our solutions across recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), managed services programs (MSP) and total talent solutions. For more information, visit www.randstadsourceright.com.

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.