Prepress
Energy Supplier EWE AG Turns to Open Text for Contract Management Solution
Monday 04. August 2008 - Large German Energy Firm Finds that Open Text Solution Lowers Risk, Speeds Operations, Increases Transparency
Open Text Corporation (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTC), a global leader in enterprise content management (ECM), announced today that one of Germany’s largest energy suppliers, EWE AG, has selected Livelink ECM – Contract Management as the basis for a company-wide contract management solution. EWE is one of the largest energy suppliers in Germany, with annual revenue of EUR 4.7 billion and more than 4,700 employees.
EWE’s Central Contract Management program, based on the Open Text software, was rolled out across the company earlier this year. The solution has helped EWE mitigate risk, quickly access strategic contract files, research contract information and improve transparency. The system contains more than 2,700 contract files that include finalized contract documents as well as all supporting content. The solution was implemented with Open Text partner BTC AG, of Oldenburg, Germany.
“Through our Open Text-based electronic contract management system, information can be analyzed prior to contract negotiations, making it easy for anyone to understand how contracts are developed,” said Stefan Hitz, Manager of Documentation Systems at EWE. “Contract management is an interdisciplinary process. The added-value potential of consistently using all the information contained in contracts company-wide is enormous. With a contract management solution, process mapping and support is now simple and systematic.”
Among the key factors in EWEs decision to select Livelink ECM – Contract Management for this project included comprehensive functionality that aligned with EWE requirements and tight integration with other key corporate applications, including Microsoft Office and SAP.
At EWE, contract files are essential for not only new contract negotiations, but also to ensure that performance criteria are being met. Using the Open Text solution, deadlines defined in contracts with important suppliers, for example, are automatically monitored while the transparency and visibility into key contracts is enhanced despite decentralized processing. EWE anticipates the solution will reduce the risk of loss, allow the company to better leverage contract conditions, and provide other cost benefits.
Rental, leasing, service and supplier contracts from across the company are now being housed in the Open Text solution together with related meta information, such as liability regulations, warranty expiration dates and search criteria. Using single sign-on, users from all departments can access this content through an employee portal and a browser. Thanks to the Open Text solutions ability to integrate with desktop applications, e-mail, Microsoft Word and Excel documents as well as PDF files can be easily copied into contract folders using drag-and-drop. Stored workflows with authorization processes and deadline tracking enable simple and interdisciplinary cooperation across EWE and its subsidiaries.
To date, more than 500 users from four organizational units have been working with the Open Text solution. Currently, the archive solution from Open Text is connected to the Central Contract Management solution. This ensures that the full contract life cycle is being addressed, including long-term archiving and document destruction. In a later expansion phase, the foundation for a company-wide ECM platform will be created by connecting the contract management solution to EWE’s SAP system and by more tightly integrating with desktop applications such as Microsoft Outlook in the front end.
Livelink ECM – Contract Management offers organizations a comprehensive solution to automate and manage contract processes from creation of individual clauses to secure collaboration during the negotiation process; proactive alerts for contracts that require review and tracking of clauses, renewal dates and terms; and retention, archival and disposition of contracts to satisfy compliance, legal and business policy requirements. The solution also integrates with a variety of enterprise systems so that contract content can be made available in other environments.