Even before the COVID-19 pandemic started, numerous enterprises and tech companies were driving digital transformation initiatives forward. The pandemic simply escalated the need and urgency of such initiatives as businesses needed to find ways to keep running while employees worked from home. For instance, one method for optimizing legal ops costs and work performance was implementing self-service contracts.
However, the price tag of massive technological makeovers can easily be considered a king’s ransom. That’s why it’s important to carefully consider which software and applications you purchase, how much you’ll benefit from them, and whether it’s worth the value of your king (or whoever is your country’s head of state).
In simpler words, you need to estimate the software’s Return on Investment (ROI). As a general rule of thumb, the higher the ROI, the better the software.
What is ROI?
ROI is a specific calculation that reflects the relationship between the benefit and cost of an investment. Regardless of the field or investment, whether it’s stocks, crypto, or even your French Press for making coffee, the ROI is always calculated the same way.
ROI = ((Investment Gain) – (Investment Cost)) / (Investment Cost)
Investment gain refers to how much was earned or gained as a result of the investment. And since ROI can easily be measured as a percentage, it can quickly be compared to the ROIs of other investments. This allows stakeholders and decision-makers to see which decisions paid off and which didn’t.
Like I said before, generally speaking, the higher the ROI, the better the decision or investment. Not always though, as there are some additional considerations to take into account.
It’s better to avoid a negative ROI, since it implies a net loss (and losing money is bad for business). At least a low or zero ROI shows no net outflows. That’s why it’s best to stay away from such options. But there are cases where you may be stuck, possibly because certain software is required by the powers-that-be.
Investment gain
There are usually two reasons why somebody purchases software: to do something they previously couldn’t do, or to do something more efficiently.
In either case, the investment’s gain can be measured by the value obtained. This could take the form of free time that can be applied to other matters, more sales deals closed, and other revenue-generating activities.
Investment cost
In the case of software, the visible direct costs are the money spent on acquiring and maintaining the new software. This includes licenses, subscriptions, fees, and technical support. In the worst-case scenario, you may even need new hardware for running the software.
However, there are some “hidden” costs to new software. The more apparent ones are onboarding and training your employees and colleagues. Personalized tutorials may not cost an arm and a leg, but they can rack up a pretty penny.
The truly hidden costs lie in the background. While your staff is engaged in tutorials, they’re not able to complete more productive activities. And there will be a drop in productivity as they become more familiar with the software. That’s why a low learning curve can be quite appealing. The steeper the curve, the more time your staff needs to adjust (and the less time they have to help generate revenue).
Consequently, the more focused your staff is on learning the ropes, the less attention they can pay to their own job. Services such as QuickDocs have proven track records of success, and they’re capable of not only letting lawyers be lawyers, but also empowering other departments.
What is QuickDocs?
QuickDocs is a specialized software that helps you set up self-service, 100% compliant documents that require zero input from Legal. That’s because QuickDocs only uses templates that were previously approved by your legal team.
If you think self-service is the same as document automation, then think again. While they may initially seem similar, once you dig a bit deeper, you’ll see just how they differ.
As a result, your team members or clients just need to fill in the required information, and voila! You have a perfect contract in less than the time it takes to make a cup of coffee.
For a bit more info about QuickDocs, you can check out our free guide, which breaks down QuickDocs in a nutshell.
QuickDocs ROI
Did you know that a lawyer’s average hourly rate is $90? That means if your lawyer spends 2 hours on one routine document – for our purposes, let’s say it’s an NDA – then your organization is charged $180 for that single NDA.
Now imagine that your lawyer has to process 1 NDA for every workday of the month. Repeat once for each workday of the month, and your bill reaches ~$3,600 (if we assume 20 workdays/month). And if there are 260 workdays per year, then the bill surges up to $46,800.
PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that the average organization handles between 20,000 and 40,000 contracts. Since the number varies considerably for small and large organizations, let’s be conservative and use the smaller of the two numbers. If 3% of the 20,000 contracts are simple NDAs, your organization must fork over $108,000 for just one year. Even 100 NDAs would lead to a bill of $18,000.
By comparison, subscribing to QuickDocs for one year is just $3,600 (at $300/month) for 1 template, 600 contracts, and an unlimited number of users.
Just looking at the raw numbers, the ROI of QuickDocs can be anywhere between $14,400 to $104,400 per year. And that doesn’t take into account all the hours (~200 to ~600) that lawyers save that they can put towards more valuable activities.
Plus, QuickDocs comes with a small learning curve, no implementation fee, and free onboarding. So all the hidden costs such as onboarding, tutorials, and lost productivity is kept to a bare minimum. QuickDocs can be mastered usually in half a day, so the loss in productivity would be akin to having a public holiday.
Wrapping up
Not only does QuickDocs help you cut costs, save time, and close more document requests, but it opens up countless opportunities. By freeing your legal team from having to deal with standard, routine document requests, they can focus on generating more value for your organization. Ultimately, it works out as a win-win scenario.
If you’d like to learn more about how QuickDocs can help your company, see QuickDocs in action for yourself or book a demo with our team.