Case study

Ceridian UK Limited

Ceridian provides HR and payroll services which help employers maximise the value of their human capital, globally serving more than 25 million employees. Many of these services involve business process outsourcing and they are business–critical for Ceridian’s customers. Customer contracts can be complex and they are often scrutinised by lawyers acting for customers. This means contracts are much more than a formality. Ceridian is a market leader in a competitive market so it strives to make it easy for its customers to do business with Ceridian.

The business case

Ceridian needs to provide a professional approach to customer contract negotiations but does not want to incur the legal fees associated with the traditional law firms. Ceridian also needs to demonstrate that the increasing legalistic demands from customers are handled appropriately and at the same demonstrate sound business controls demanded by the tough regulatory regime of Sarbanes Oxley.

Ceridian concludes over a thousand contracts a year for its business process outsourcing customers. Customers often negotiate contract terms. Sometimes a simple, short agreement will suffice but many projects require a legal framework which is much more comprehensive. Ceridian has an in-house lawyer who wanted a solution for handling customer contracts which would free up legal resources to meet Ceridian’s wider strategic objectives while ensuring customer contracts were handled competently and in tune with Ceridian’s business.

The solution

The solution was branded internally as ‘The Contracts Wizard’. Sales executives provide answers to an interactive questionnaire and the Contracts Wizard immediately produces a draft contract tailored in every respect to the customer’s requirements. Any queries or negotiations are handled by a team of non-lawyers – they were recruited internally so they understood Ceridian’s business. Use of non-lawyers is possible because they are given training to handle the vast majority of issues which tended to arise in the context of Ceridian’s customer contracts. The Contracts Wizard has features which allows them to respond to negotiations without needing legal drafting skills. Ceridian’s in-house lawyer only had to deal with the reduced number of projects which required bespoke legal expertise.

“...Although we have the benefit of a fixed fee, the solutions adopted by The Contracts Team evolve to meet our changing needs and also the needs of our customers. It’s great to see a law firm challenging the traditional way of working while maintaining a professional approach...”Doug Sawers, MD, Ceridian UK Limited.

Business benefits

The outcome: all contracts are concluded in a controlled, legally prudent manner. There are fewer contract issues because the documents are tailored for each customer. Expenditure on legal fees has dramatically reduced. The process of creating the Contracts Wizard also revealed opportunities for commercial and operational improvements which had gone unnoticed in the ‘noise’ surrounding the old contract process. Cycle times for signing contracts are reduced substantially. The authorisations process for new contracts no longer depended on managers having to manually spot deficiencies in lengthy contracts; indeed, many contracts do not require authorisation at all because the Contracts Wizard provides assurance.

The solution deployed at Ceridian was awarded the ‘Legal IT Award for Mitigating Risk Through the Use of IT’ – the judges (lawyers and IT professionals from leading organisations) recognised that the solution allowed Ceridian to reduce its legal costs and manage risk.