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A Global Consumer Goods Leader Processes 1,300+ Contracts Monthly with Leah CLM

A global consumer goods leader, the global consumer goods company behind brands like Nivea, faced a contract management crisis that threatened operational efficiency across its 16,000-employee organization. With operations spanning Germany, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and China, the company struggled with contracts scattered across multiple SharePoint repositories and manual filing systems. The fragmented storage created visibility gaps that left teams searching manually for critical documents, while duplicate supplier records proliferated without detection.

A Global Consumer Goods Leader Processes 1,300+ Contracts Monthly with Leah CLM
Challenges
3,000+

Contracts scattered across fragmented SharePoint systems requiring consolidation and migration

100+

Procurement categories managed without centralized visibility or standardized processes

Zero

Automated workflows for supplier onboarding or contract compliance tracking

“The most important value is having proper database infrastructure. Till now we didn't have a clue of what contracts we have, what's the importance, what's the risk behind them.”

CLM Project Leader for Digitalization, A Global Consumer Goods Leader

Challenge

A global consumer goods leader, the global consumer goods company behind brands like Nivea, faced a contract management crisis that threatened operational efficiency across its 16,000-employee organization. With operations spanning Germany, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and China, the company struggled with contracts scattered across multiple SharePoint repositories and manual filing systems. The fragmented storage created visibility gaps that left teams searching manually for critical documents, while duplicate supplier records proliferated without detection.

The lack of centralized reporting capabilities left leadership blind to contract status, compliance obligations, and renewal deadlines. Legal review bottlenecks slowed business operations as teams navigated inefficient approval processes without automated workflows. The audit compliance risks grew more serious as regulatory requirements intensified across multiple jurisdictions without adequate process tracking or documentation capabilities.

Solution Search

A global consumer goods leader selected Leah CLM platform for its comprehensive automation capabilities and enterprise-grade integration architecture. The platform's flexible workflow engine enables sophisticated approval routing across legal, procurement, and business units while maintaining compliance requirements across multiple regulatory jurisdictions. The cognitive search capabilities ensure instant contract retrieval from centralized repositories, eliminating manual filing system navigation.

The solution's integration framework proved decisive, supporting seamless connections with DocuSign for electronic signatures including Qualified Electronic Signatures (QES) for European compliance, SAP ERP with Master Data Governance for supplier information, ServiceNow for cross-functional request management, OneSense for party management, and Power BI for advanced reporting analytics. The platform's API capabilities enabled custom integration with the company's Stars supplier due diligence system, creating automated workflows that trigger contract generation when procurement registers new suppliers.

The automated notification system ensures teams never miss critical renewal dates or compliance obligations, while comprehensive audit trails capture every action, approval, and modification across the contract lifecycle. The platform's template management capabilities support diverse contract types including purchasing agreements, sales contracts, NDAs, code of conduct agreements, and intercompany documents.

“The tenant migration went incredibly smoothly with excellent teamwork across both organizations. When you have the right people in place, complex implementations run seamlessly.”

CLM Project Leader for Digitalization, A Global Consumer Goods Leader

Implementation

A global consumer goods leader approached the deployment with disciplined project management, establishing dedicated product owners, external implementation support, and structured governance processes. The team began with a comprehensive data migration project, systematically consolidating 3,000+ procurement contracts from legacy SharePoint repositories into the centralized CLM platform. The migration required extensive data quality cleanup to ensure accurate metadata and searchable contract information.

The implementation team deployed 2,659 licenses across legal, business, and administrative user types, configuring sophisticated workflows for each business unit's requirements. Technical specialists developed complex integrations between Leah and existing enterprise systems, establishing staging and production environments with rigorous testing protocols before each deployment phase.

The global rollout proceeded in carefully orchestrated phases, beginning with headquarters operations before expanding to regional offices. The team achieved global go-live in March/April, with continued expansion targeted for the Greater China region and sales department implementation scheduled for Q4. Leah customer success team provided weekly configuration sessions during critical implementation phases, hands-on training for power users, and ongoing technical support for complex integration challenges.

Outcome

A global consumer goods leader now processes 1,300+ contracts monthly through Leah, demonstrating consistent growth throughout 2024 and establishing the CLM platform as mission-critical operational infrastructure. The automated supplier onboarding integration delivered immediate results, triggering 700+ code of conduct contracts in July-August 2024 alone when procurement registered new suppliers through the Stars system.

The centralized contract repository transformed organizational visibility, providing instant access to contract status, obligations, and risk profiles that were previously invisible. Comprehensive audit trails now meet regulatory requirements across multiple countries, with Power BI integration delivering sophisticated reporting capabilities that demonstrate business value to executive leadership. The platform's qualified electronic signature capabilities ensure European operations maintain compliance while accelerating contract execution velocity.

"After a lot of ups and downs during implementation, we now have a stable system in place, which is great. CLM is our main tool that we work with every day in the legal department."

— Head of Contracts, the company

The organization's commitment to continuous improvement demonstrates profound confidence in the platform's strategic value. The company has established mature enhancement management processes, systematically tracking 40+ prioritized feature requests through structured three-hour requirement workshops and monthly progress reviews. The disciplined approach to optimization—with requirements categorized across four priority levels and targeted for specific release cycles—reflects the platform's evolution from implementation project to essential business infrastructure.

The transformation from fragmented, manual contract processes to automated, centralized management has positioned the company for continued expansion. With 42 standardized contract templates planned as part of a global initiative and sales department implementation approaching, the company continues scaling CLM capabilities across the enterprise.

"We're committed to migrating all contracts from our legacy archive system by end of year. The value proposition is substantial given our huge contract volume."

— CLM Project Leader for Digitalization, the company

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