Part #1 of the Five-Part Series “Top 5 ELM Benefits”
How Proven ELM Benefits Improve Your Purchase Case Through Increased Efficiency
Corporate purchases require due diligence to ensure benefits outweigh costs. Evaluating LegalTech solutions can be challenging. However, ELM systems benefit more than just Legal teams. It’s crucial to involve other business units in the discussion. Decision-makers are more confident when evidence shows the solution benefits the entire business.
Enterprise Legal Management (ELM) solutions can improve efficiency and reduce costs across departments like Legal, Finance, HR, Procurement, and Operations. The key question for decision-makers is: ‘What tangible benefits will my organization see from an ELM solution?’ In the next blog posts, we’ll explore the answer.
In this series of blogs, we will take a deep dive into the Top 5 benefits of ELM and what each offers to modern business teams. Our goal is to give your team the data to build your case for adopting advanced capabilities to improve Legal performance, increase the business data transparency, and lower overall costs.
We will present real-world client success stories and show their process for defining their challenges, identifying potential solutions, and choosing their ELM system. The resulting benefits will also demonstrate how ELM systems provide insights that aid the entire business ecosystem.
Our satisfied clients report that ELM offers a holistic, transparent view of their business data, empowering other business units to excel along with Legal. We’ll showcase these client success stories that illustrate additional benefits and demonstrate the strong value LegalTech brings to the corporate table.
Increase efficiency through process automation and expert support
How process automation benefits efficiency
Legal teams want to focus on their core strength – practicing law – but increased workloads can overwhelm their staff. ELM solutions provide automation opportunities to reduce repetitive tasks, increase efficiency, and minimize human input errors. Not only does automation offer time savings, but it can also identify areas of the workflow in need of efficiency optimization.
An example is the ELM Automated Rules Engine, which checks invoices against billing codes and corporate rules before human review. The system may automatically adjust, reject, or accept invoice discrepancies based on custom approval rules. This eliminates human coding errors and reduces time spent on costly invoice reviews. Reviewers are only involved when an invoice passes all system checks.
Legal is a prime example of where redundant and repetitive tasks take time away from higher-value initiatives. Processes automated within an ELM system let you repurpose staff on more fulfilling, revenue-generating tasks, directly impacting corporate profitability and job satisfaction.
With the system analyzing and managing the business integrated data flows, the real-time data becomes real-time information. The analyzed data, or smart data, provides intelligently delivered insights throughout the company – where they will have the most impact. To make informed and timely decisions, legal teams rely on their data. Trusting that the automated capabilities of ELM systems are working behind the scenes empowers corporate legal departments to take more confident and timely action. Ascent ELM clients report that the efficiency benefit alone has proven its value time and again. They have seen performance increases of as much as 65% after implementing the ELM System.
How does expert support increased efficiency?
A few select providers include expert client and vendor support at no charge. ELM clients get answers when they need them, and legal teams enjoy training and support, ensuring top performance and satisfaction – at no extra charge. Providing this same ongoing training and support to the client’s outside vendors ensures the system will sustain top performance on both sides of the relationship.
Studies have shown that clients want a responsive ELM solution provider that partners with their in-house team. Clients wish to contact an expert on the first call when answers are required. A renewed focus on business performance and cost savings, including client support in the ELM workflow, allows for a predictable cost of ownership well suitable for the entire organization.
NINJA TIP: Outside LegalTech providers that function as a partner – not just as service providers – act as an extension of your own business. Use their profound experience and resources to help shift the workload off your staff so they can focus on practicing law.
Proven client success stories demonstrate ELM’s increased efficiency benefit
Why not use the triumphs of your legal colleagues to build a success story of your own? Look at the challenges they faced, why they chose ELM LegalTech to help overcome them, and their documented efficiency results.
NINJA TIP: Increasing efficiency is a process that pays off over time. The benefits grow week by week, month by month, and year by year. As a result, savings accumulate, creating a positive ripple effect across the entire business. So, by adapting the success strategies of others, you can create your own win.
Case Study #1: Global HealthCare Leader
Situation:
The US-based leader in healthcare and well-being products started a global initiative to improve efficiency, reduce legal expenditures, and support critical business needs.
Efficiency Problems Faced:
How to structure, manage, and track time against Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs).
Solution:
A system with integrated automation processes to track and manage IT costs, minimize system complexity, and improve efficiency in processing invoice appeals and tracking AFAs.
ELM results:
Team was empowered to cut time in managing the appeals process and track and report on AFA progress in real-time. IT support costs dropped 10% due to automated processes.
Case Study #2: Global Chemical Manufacturing Leader
Situation:
One of the largest global chemical-related product producers saw immediate opportunities to improve Legal Operations effectiveness and efficiency.
Efficiency Problems Faced:
Finding data on legal spending, streamlining labor-intensive reports, reducing time delays due to system complexity.
Solution:
Analytic dashboards showing data in one place. The flexible, user-configured platform lets the legal team focus on practicing law, not overseeing technology.
ELM results:
Efficiently managed outside counsel rates. They reported a savings of 2hrs/week/attorney with process automation. Enhanced reporting capabilities let leaders get trusted answers in minutes, not hours.
How do you unlock the ELM increased efficiency benefits?
Unlocking these ELM benefits is the easy part. Providers like us are ready to help legal teams configure the ELM system to take full advantage of the process automation capabilities. they also include customer support experts at no extra charge along with many functions that others typically charge fees to manage:
It’s easy to configure, so you don’t need a super tech-savvy in-house team, tech experts in your IT department, or an expensive outside consultant to implement ELM.
NINJA TIP: Ascent ELM is designed to be efficient and user-friendly from day #1. And the predictable cost of ownership means you’ll know your monthly fee remains constant while your team performance continues to improve.
What’s next?
In our next post, we’ll explore the second benefit of the top five that comes from implementing ELM systems in year #1 – Greater transparency using one location to find answers.