New research conducted by Docusign and Deloitte has revealed that inefficient agreement management, termed as the "Agreement Trap," leads to an annual global economic loss of approximately SGD$2.4 trillion. This issue arises when businesses rely on outdated systems and processes that confine critical business information within static, disconnected, and flat files.
The report highlights significant losses in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, which contributes SGD $670 billion to SGD $817 billion to the global figure. Kartik Krishnamurthy, Vice President for Asia-Pacific at Docusign, emphasised, "Agreements are the cornerstone of every business, and outdated management systems and practices are impacting productivity, costing businesses time, money, and opportunity. That's why we've introduced Intelligent Agreement Management to help organisations in APAC modernise agreement processes and grow their businesses more efficiently and quickly."
The Agreement Trap impacts businesses by slowing down processes, causing delays in deal closures, and leading to missed opportunities for cost savings and growth. Specifically, the research found that more than half (52%) of global respondents experienced delays due to waiting for identity and notary verification. Furthermore, over 40% missed opportunities related to renewal or volume discounts because of their inability to extract value from agreement metadata.
Companies with disconnected workflows reportedly spend an extra 18% of their time working on agreements, which has detrimental effects on productivity, employee morale, and overall business outcomes. On a global scale, businesses waste an average of 190,000 hours annually on inefficient agreement management, which equates to a total of 55 billion hours lost each year. In the APAC region, organisations process agreements 6% slower than the global average due to a lower adoption rate of agreement management tools (35% in APAC versus 46% in North America).
Moreover, 40% of APAC participants indicated that they faced delays from manual, inefficient processes at the development and signing stages of contracts, adding approximately five extra hours per agreement compared to the global average. Additionally, 62% of respondents struggled to locate and access previously approved contracts, and 49% experienced multiple delays in obtaining the correct signatures in the proper order.
The study also noted that 54% of respondents cited the manual entry of agreement data into downstream systems as a significant pain point. Half of the respondents felt overwhelmed handling the volume and complexity of their agreements, and about 40% reported needing more collaboration tools and capabilities, resulting in delays and re-works. Only 36% employed intelligent contract analytics tools, and even fewer (31%) utilised a centralised and searchable contract repository.
In response to these challenges, Docusign has introduced a new SaaS category named Intelligent Agreement Management (IAM), designed to revolutionise how businesses manage their agreements. The IAM platform aims to modernise agreement processes by enabling companies to create agreements collaboratively, automate workflows, and integrate with existing business systems such as CRM, HCM, and ERP. It also aims to help businesses commit to agreements faster by streamlining contract review cycles and enhancing productivity, while transforming agreement data into actionable insights. Lastly, IAM seeks to manage agreements better by unveiling hidden information, unlocking value, and reducing unnecessary risks.
Additionally, Docusign has announced a new initiative with GovTech to provide Singapore residents with Singpass accounts access to free Docusign accounts. This initiative, set to launch later this year, will support Singapore's Smart Nation vision by allowing users to send 10 envelopes and upload documents for self-signing free of charge. This collaboration builds on their previous partnership, "Sign with Singpass," which began in 2021.
The research underscores the urgent need for businesses to modernise their agreement management systems to prevent further economic losses and improve productivity and efficiency. The full report is available for those interested in exploring the local and global findings in more detail.