How Certinal’s Electronic Signature Solution Transformed a Global Automotive Leader’s Workflows

The epidemic has forced organizations to embrace more automated, secure, and efficient procedures, which has sharply increased the need for digital transformation. Electronic signatures are now essential to efficient corporate operations in this modern era, particularly for multinational corporations that need to meet compliance, speed, and accuracy standards.

With antiquated, paper-based operations, it became more and more challenging for a global automotive company to manage documents across numerous regions and navigate complex approval processes. It was therefore imperative to find speedier, more dependable, and compatible solutions in order to meet the expectations of the post-pandemic global market. The result? A complete transformation of their document management, with enhanced speed, security, and efficiency across their global operations.

Why One of the Largest Automotive Companies Needed Electronic Signatures

Effectiveness is necessary for managing intricate international operations at all levels, particularly in the documentation department. Managing the approval and administration of contracts, procurement paperwork, and compliance forms across several areas had grown to be a significant challenge for one of the biggest automotive corporations in the world. Their antiquated digital or paper-based technologies were no longer suitable for the volume and velocity needed in the competitive modern automobile industry.

Here are the core challenges that drove their need for a modern electronic signature solution:

• Navigating Global Complexity: Operating across six major regions—US, Canada, Austria, Germany, Mexico, and China—each location had its own set of rules, regulations, languages, and legal requirements. Managing documents that complied with these varying standards was becoming a logistical nightmare. The company needed a solution that could adapt to each region while providing a centralized, seamless process for digital signature management while ensuring regulatory compliance.
• Unified E-Signature Solution: Their existing digital processes were fragmented, with different systems in place for internal and external contracts. This lack of cohesion made it difficult to ensure consistency, security, and compliance across all business units. What they needed was a single, unified platform that could handle both internal workflows and external client or vendor contracts, offering seamless API integrations and a comprehensive view of all documentation.
• Support Struggles: With their previous e-signature solution, they experienced frequent delays in getting support, which hindered operations. Immediate support is crucial for resolving issues quickly and keeping operations running smoothly. The lack of proactive and responsive customer support led to frustrations within the company’s legal, procurement, and administrative departments. They needed more agile support to fit into their agile workflows.
• Escalating Costs: Their existing system had become financially unsustainable. With rising operational costs, it was becoming difficult to justify the high fees associated with their legacy e-signature provider. This pushed them to look for a more cost-effective alternative that could deliver high performance without the hefty price tag. Certinal’s solution promised to be a cost-efficient way to manage large volumes of digital documents.
• Slow Approval Processes: The traditional approval workflows were lengthy and complex, often requiring manual interventions that slowed down decision-making. With business deals and procurement decisions hinging on timely approvals, delays in document signing were directly impacting the company’s ability to remain agile and competitive. They needed a solution that could automate business processes and accelerate document approvals, providing real-time visibility into the status of each contract while fitting seamlessly into their agile workflow.

Each of these challenges highlighted the urgent need for a modern, unified, and efficient electronic signature platform. To address these pain points, the company turned to Certinal, which promised to revolutionize their document processes with a flexible, secure, and scalable solution powered by AI and designed to enhance agile workflows.

Learn why Certinal is the best alternative to DocuSign

How Certinal Addressed the Automotive Leader’s Pain Points

After identifying the key operational challenges, this global automotive leader turned to Certinal to provide a robust electronic signature solution that could address each issue. Certinal’s solution didn’t just streamline document approvals; it transformed their entire document workflow, making their processes faster, more compliant, and more cost-effective. Here’s how Certinal solved their pain points:

• QES for Global Contracts: Certinal’s solution enabled mobile-enabled qualified electronic signatures (QES) that complied with EU regulations. This was crucial in helping the company manage global contracts while maintaining regulatory compliance across regions.
• Handling Large Files: Automotive contracts often involve large, data-heavy documents. Certinal’s platform was optimized to handle files over 25MB, ensuring no delays due to size restrictions. This made it easier to manage contracts and agreements without worrying about data transfer limits.
• Efficient Bulk Transactions: One of the company’s key needs was to streamline the mass distribution of documents across departments and workflows. Certinal allowed for efficient bulk signing and document management, significantly reducing manual workloads and speeding up transaction times.
• AI Contract Summaries: Certinal’s AI-powered contract summaries gave procurement and sales teams instant, easy-to-digest insights into long and complex contracts. This feature helped speed up the decision-making process and reduced the time spent manually reviewing documents.
• Licensing Overhaul: The company needed a more cost-efficient way to manage their licensing model. Certinal provided a transaction-based license that cut costs while also widening user access, allowing multiple teams across regions to use the platform without incurring excessive fees.
• Smart Signer Fields: Multi-party agreements often require complex signing processes. Certinal simplified this with guided signing, ensuring that all required signatories could easily identify and complete their sections of the documents.
• Contract Sync in the Cloud: Certinal’s integration with cloud platforms like SharePoint enabled seamless storage and syncing of signed contracts and reports, ensuring that teams across all regions had instant access to the latest documents.
• Workflow Localization: One of the major hurdles the company faced was adapting documents to regional standards, including languages and date formats. Certinal’s solution offered workflow localization, ensuring that documents were compliant with local regulations and formats, improving regional efficiency.

Through Certinal’s AI-driven, cloud-enabled, and cost-efficient platform, the global automotive leader overcame the challenges they faced and transformed their document workflows across the board.

Learn 13 reasons why global enterprises love Certinal eSign

The Impact of Certinal’s eSign Solution 

Certinal’s electronic signature solution not only addressed the automotive leader’s pain points but also delivered significant business value and measurable results. By integrating Certinal’s advanced features, the company saw transformative outcomes that streamlined their global operations and improved overall efficiency.

Here are the key results and milestones achieved:

• 60% Reduction in Average Cycle Time: One of the most critical improvements was the significant reduction in the time it took to complete contract cycles. With Certinal’s automated workflows and AI-powered processes, the company reduced the average cycle time by 60%, speeding up approvals and accelerating key business decisions.
• Implemented within 60 Days: The rapid implementation of Certinal’s solution was another major milestone. The platform was up and running across all six global regions within just 60 days, ensuring minimal disruption to the company’s existing operations while maximizing efficiency gains right from the start.
• Dramatic Cost Reductions: Certinal’s cost-efficient pricing model, coupled with their transaction-based licensing, resulted in dramatic cost savings compared to the company’s previous e-signature provider. By eliminating unnecessary overheads and providing a scalable solution, the automotive leader was able to reduce operational costs significantly.

Here are some solution highlights:

• Secure Electronic Signatures: Compliant with EU regulations and accessible on mobile devices, ensuring secure and flexible global contract management.
• Large File Transfer Capability: Secure cloud storage with the ability to transfer files up to 250MB without delays or restrictions.
• Automated Bulk Distribution: Streamlined document workflows through automated distribution to multiple departments and stakeholders.
• AI-Powered Contract Summaries: Automated summarization of complex contracts using AI, speeding up decision-making.
• Flexible Licensing: Transaction-based licensing options that widened user access while keeping costs under control.
• Smart Signer Fields: Intuitive and intelligent signatory field recognition, simplifying multi-party agreements.
• Cloud-Based Contract Management: Full integration with cloud platforms for efficient storage, syncing, and access to signed contracts.
• Localized Workflows: Customizable document localization tools that catered to regional standards for compliance and accessibility.

Certinal’s solution wasn’t just a replacement for their previous provider—it was a business transformation tool that delivered rapid and sustainable value, enabling the automotive leader to operate with greater agility, speed, and cost-efficiency.

Conclusion

This multinational leader in the automotive industry saw major operational improvements—such as a 60% decrease in cycle times and significant cost savings—after deploying Certinal’s electronic signature system. The organization was able to maintain compliance across locations, optimize intricate operations, and operate with increased agility and efficiency thanks to Certinal’s AI-powered platform and seamless integration. This change demonstrates how Certinal’s technology enables actual business impact through quicker processes, improved compliance, and lower costs—rather than just digitizing signatures.

Ready to transform your business? Streamline your document workflows, enhance compliance, and drive efficiency with Certinal’s powerful electronic signature solution. Book a Demo

FAQ

1. How did Certinal’s electronic signature solution improve workflow efficiency for the automotive leader?
Ans: Certinal’s solution automated the company’s document workflows, significantly reducing approval times by 60%. With features like AI-powered contract summaries, automated bulk distribution, and real-time tracking, the company experienced faster approvals and greater operational efficiency across their global operations.

2. What specific challenges did Certinal’s eSignature solution address for the automotive leader?
Ans: Certinal helped the company overcome several key challenges, including managing complex global compliance, reducing high operational costs, automating time-consuming manual approval processes, and providing seamless API integrations for efficient document handling across regions.

3. How quickly was Certinal’s eSignature solution implemented and what were the immediate benefits?
Ans: Certinal’s solution was fully implemented across six regions within just 60 days. The immediate benefits included faster document cycle times, reduced costs due to a transaction-based licensing model, and improved compliance and security in document workflows.