Reducing contract analysis time by 62% for a Szczecin manufacturing company
The client struggled with a long verification process for distribution contracts. Thanks to our audit system, document circulation time dropped significantly.
Stal-Pol Serwis struggled with paralysis in their legal department when handling 47 distribution contracts annually. Development Consulate implemented an optimized verification scheme, which allowed unlocking frozen processes in just 3 months.
The challenge
In January 2024, the Stal-Pol Serwis board approached us with a specific problem: the average time from receiving a contract to its acceptance was 14 business days. With a large scale of orders, this caused downtime in component deliveries to contractors from Germany.
The situation was hindered by the lack of a transparent system for controlling changes in documentation. The sales department sent revisions via email in various versions, generating 8-12 mistakes in editing final legal provisions every quarter.
Our approach
Our team of 3 advisors analyzed the history of 24 contracts from the previous year. We identified bottlenecks at the stage of internal consultations between the sales department and the legal advisor.
We implemented a unified checklist for sales staff and established a rigid format for exchanging comments. Let's get down to business: we reduced the number of decision-makers in the process from 5 to 3 key specialists.
The solution
We built a template contract model that contained 79.5% repetitive legal provisions. This allowed lawyers to focus solely on variable price parameters and delivery deadlines, instead of reading the entire documentation from the start.
Additionally, we introduced a dedicated inbox for contracts, which allowed avoiding chaos in employee private emails. Since February 2024, every contract passes through the first stage of verification within 4 hours of arrival.
Results
Thanks to process changes, Stal-Pol Serwis regained operational liquidity. Work time of the involved specialists was better utilized, and errors in documents were almost entirely eliminated.
Timeline
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January 2024Audit of historical documentation and bottleneck analysis.
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February 2024Implementation of a new document circulation model and training for sales staff.
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March 2024First full month of work under the new scheme and performance measurement.
"I was skeptical about changes, but reducing the time from 14 days to less than 2 is a change we felt in sales results before the end of the quarter."