LV streamlines contract process management with Docusign CLM

Liverpool Victoria (LV) has existed for over 180 years and is a mutually owned investment fund manager and financial services company. Its range of protection, investment and retirement products, services, and advice enable its members to protect their income when they are working and maximise it when they stop.

As part of its digital transformation, LV identified major challenges around the lack of data due to outdated modes of working, along with a lack of visibility over the commercial activities being undertaken by the business. Investing in Docusign CLM has given the business greater insight into data capture and workflows, while at the same time centralising financial agreements and contracts for greater business oversight. 

Ensuring regulatory compliance with Docusign solutions

The Third-Party Management Function team within LV was established in 2022. From an operational perspective, the team suffered from a lack of data insights and inherited outdated ways of working from within LV. As Neale Smith, Operations and Risk Manager for Third-Party Management at LV explains, “From a major day-to-day trading perspective, the big challenge for the team lay in a lack of data. We had no formulated contract database, and no control over the commercial activities that were being undertaken by the business.”

At the same time as embedding the new team, LV also instigated an ambitious deadline to make all document agreements conform with the PRA Supervisory Statement SS1/21 and PRA Supervisory Statement SS2/21. These directives set out the PRA’s expectations on firms’ operational resilience; their outsourcing and third-party risk management activities. As a result, the LV team not only needed to embed a new set of processes, but also ensure it remained PRA compliant at all points along the value chain.

LV found itself in a situation where it needed to accelerate the digital transformation of its contract agreements but was hindered by a limited amount of time in which to achieve its aims. The business required a system that was auditable and introduced a compliant set of procurement and contract management procedures, especially as it needed to implement new requirements across the business that conformed to the regulatory requirements of the RPA.

A full appraisal of several systems was carried out that considered both key deliverables and outcomes, as well as budgetary constraints. Docusign was selected as the most compelling proposal, as Smith explains: “Docusign was able to deliver exactly what we needed in a relatively short time frame. In turn, that gave us the comfort and the support we felt would help us achieve both our short- and long-term goals.’

Adding greater data visibility with Docusign CLM

Moving from a traditional paper-based system, LV knew it had to process many thousands of legacy contracts. As Smith explains:

LV found that to create a database it needed to gather its documentation and collate associated metadata in one single spreadsheet. Then, once the documents had been systematically uploaded into the system, Docusign CLM matched documents with the correct metadata.  

Acclimatising employees to new ways of working can often be a barrier to change. LV approached training by identifying two types of user and coaching them in different ways. For heavy or regular users, such as the legal and HR teams, or information security data protection officer, demonstration sessions followed by support through initial processes were held. For irregular users, more one-to-one is offered to assist them through the various stages.

Flexibility within the Docusign CLM system has enabled LV to incorporate changes into workflows and procedures as and when the business has required. The inclusion of automated approval routines, which pre-defines the routing process of contracts, is one key benefit for the business as it is not open to abuse or human error, making for a more efficient and compliant auditing process.

Equally, enhanced visibility of contractual data, not just for the third-party management function, but across other areas of the business has been another key benefit. The ability to track contractual data from inception through to completion has offered the business data insights it was not previously capable of capturing.

Key to a successful implementation for Smith was the ability to keep things simple. As he explains: “Docusign offers a lot of feature enhancements, but we knew to just focus on the key process and build from there. Other processes can be added later.” 

Accelerating business growth with Docusign

Using Docusign CLM to streamline the workflow processes of agreement signing has delivered a positive impact across the LV Third-Party Management team. The digital restructuring of procedures has delivered greater due diligence, while simultaneously improving time-management efficiency, and reducing the number of steps to completing tasks.

LV has started a second phase of process improvement and has various workflow changes planned in Docusign CLM, enabling greater flexibility and automation. From a system perspective, it has long-term plans to implement its Oracle finance system with Docusign CLM to enable more accurate and real-time features to be supported.  

Internally, the business is looking to use Docusign CLM with other document departments to bring even greater flexibility into how the organisation serves its client-base. As Smith sums up: