Misys transforms operations with DocuSign integration
- Summary:
- DocuSign integration with Salesforce and other applications helps financial software vendor Misys transform its operations with new digital processes
We've just implemented NetSuite, fully integrated into Salesforce. What we're trying to complete is the 'Misys platform', where every single one of our applications are integrated. Every part of the business has been digitally transformed or is undergoing it at the moment.
As part of that shift, Sullivan is responsible for implementing DocuSign to maximize the use of electronic signatures and eliminate the need to print, fax, scan, or courier documents to complete transactions or deliver notifications. One of the most obvious areas to make use of the technology is in sales, where tracking documents and collecting signatures is a key part of a business-critical process. Misys has two primary use cases for DocuSign integration here, said Sullivan.
For sales contracts, it's a very straightforward 'no-brainer' where DocuSign can improve the process.
The second case is the maintenance sweep. Misys' business model is very reliant on recurring revenue from our clients. There's the initial license fee and then there's the recurring fee that covers maintenance and support. The amount varies each year, depending on various factors.
Improving visibility
The emailed document notifying customers how much their annual maintenance fee will be doesn't require a signature, but making sure people have seen it helps forestall later queries when the invoice arrives. The letters are generated from Salesforce data using Conga mailmerge tools. By adding DocuSign's certified delivery capability, Misys now gets the visibility and audit trail that it previously lacked.
The data is sitting there in SalesForce. Conga allows us to manipulate it and integrate it into a Word document. Then we use DocuSign as the delivery vehicle and that's where it's very powerful. This happens from the SalesForce opportunity. DocuSign just natively, automatically, attaches the DocuSign status right back to that opportunity. That means anyone in the business can look at the DocuSign status and not only see the document that went out to the customer but see exactly when they opened it. That visibility and certainty is very useful to us.
Setting all this up was surprisingly easy, he added:
In one afternoon myself and one of our Salesforce administrators were able to do all the configuration to not only integrate Conga and DocuSign but also completely set up the process. The next morning we demonstrated it to our CFO and he was delighted.
Extending to HR
Seven use cases have already gone live and several more are likely roll out by the end of the year, said Sullivan. The initial use cases were in the partners, legal and sales groups. Now other departments are getting involved, including HR, which will use DocuSign to automate its new joiner process.
We're not going to just replicate the paper process. We're going to gather data digitally from our new employees — and because we have the data in digital format we're gong to extract that data. We can automatically send it to payroll, to IT. We can do a lot of clever process just triggered by this employee completing a digital document with the data in it.
That was a real pain point for them and the second I told one of our HR managers about DocuSign, her eyes lit up and she said let's talk about it.
One aspect that requires careful investigation is the legal status of digital signing, said Sullivan.
We're doing a lot of due diligence at the moment. We would love to roll out the on-boarding globally but that is one of the limitations we're aware of. We're going to start in the UK where we know there's good support for this.
Going beyond automation
One of the first use cases to go live provides a powerful illustration of the extent to which digitizing a previously manual process can eliminate cost, delays and risk. At its heart is a document that requires a total of 170 unique signatures by 38 separate signatories spread around the world. Sullivan explained:
Misys is a very global company with a long history of acquisitions. So there's a very complicated entity structure. Changing the tax structure means notifying a lot of people. There was this massive letter that needed to be signed by pretty much every subsidiary within Mysis. That was a document that in the past was duplicated and distributed to each country, and each signatory would sign their own copy. This was then all gathered together and you would hope the signatures matched the number of signatories. With DocuSign, we could see, these twenty have signed, these ones we have to chase — and we could apply the right pressure to get it signed.
But digital transformation is about more than simply replacing physical documents with an electronic alternative. Sullivan is now investigating ways of cutting out cumbersome processes by taking advantage of the extra context and automation that a fully digital process allows. The HR onboarding process is one example but there are many others, he believes.
I think DocuSign is a very powerful tool in our toolkit. It's great to see how you can connect all of these things up, you get these emergent qualities and it's greater than the sum of the parts. As things become more digital, you wouldn't be able to achieve what we're doing if you couldn't integrate them together.
Disclosure: NetSuite and salesforce.com are diginomica premier partners.
Updated 2:35pm to correct 'maintenance suite' in paragraph 5 to 'maintenance sweep'
Image credit: Headshot courtesy of Misys.