How nGAGE Talent scaled contract management across 30+ sub-brands with Summize
Discover how fast-growing recruitment and talent management firm nGAGE Talent scaled efficient and centralized contract processes across over 30 of it's sub-brands.
Key outcomes
Objective
nGAGE Talent is a fast-growing recruitment and talent management firm, made up of more than 30 subsidiary brands, supported by a central in-house legal team of just four people. As the business grows through frequent acquisitions, it’s vital for the legal team to have contract management processes that are simple to implement, monitor, and scale.
Prior to implementing Summize’s contract lifecycle management (CLM) software, the business’ contract intake was handled entirely through a shared Outlook inbox. This was a manual, scattered way of working which caused administrative bottlenecks and provided limited visibility of which contracts were in play. The team found they were duplicating work, as it was challenging to monitor all the different types of contracts across 30 brands and to delegate the task to the right person.
Further acquisitions added even more complexity. Each newly acquired brand had its own contract templates, storage methods, and processes. The lack of standardization made it difficult to centralize contract information or implement consistent legal oversight.
nGAGE decided to implement Summize’s CLM solution with the ultimate goal to standardize contract processes throughout the business. Tommy Hartley, one of nGAGE’s Senior Paralegals, was tasked with rolling out Summize across the company – to all 30 brands and to 1,300 colleagues at the time.
Solution
Tommy knew that implementing one solution and changing the habits of over 1,300 employees would be a challenge. But it was a hurdle he and the legal team welcomed in order to create a better way of working for the whole company.
The team started by creating presentations, delivering training sessions, and hosting regular drop-ins to explain the new intake process. Although moving everyone from simply forwarding emails to Legal to using Summize’s embedded Outlook integration was quite a change, Tommy and the team were happy with how quickly the brands took to Summize.
The Outlook integration was key to driving adoption. It allowed the business to stay within the tool they were already so used to, but to now submit contracts directly to Legal via triaged workflows and trackable tasks. This helped ease the transition from the previous shared mailbox approach while maintaining a structured self-serve model that gave Legal full visibility and clear, trackable processes.
Alongside the rollout to the business teams, nGAGE’s legal team standardized its templates to ensure consistency across all brands. Tommy explained that the team developed more than 120 templates covering multiple jurisdictions and use cases. These templates enabled each brand to generate their own low-risk contracts tailored to their specific entity – but all within Legal’s guardrails.
“With Summize’s create functionality, our legal team approve the templates and the brands just put the commercials in. It’s a really quick self-serve system!”
As well as rolling out a much more user-friendly create and request process, the legal team also spent time perfecting their repository. With multiple brands and acquisitions, it’s vital that all contracts and their attachments are stored in one central location, with easy-to-use search and filter functionality. Legal now has confidence in their repository, and the rest of the business can easily find the data they need.
Outcome
Summize has enabled nGAGE Talent to scale its contract management processes efficiently, supporting more than 30 brands and over 1,300 employees with a small legal team. By centralizing contract workflows, the business has significantly reduced admin tasks, while improving visibility and consistency across the organization.
Contract turnaround times have also improved dramatically, particularly through the use of Summize’s intake functionality via Outlook, which enables the business’ brands to generate contracts independently using Legal’s approved templates. Legal no longer waste time creating the same contracts, nor checking if the right templates have been used.
Summize has strengthened nGAGE’s ability to integrate newly acquired brands quickly. Standard templates, centralized storage, and structured workflows ensure that new businesses can be onboarded efficiently and aligned with group-wide processes.
Tommy explains that the team is continually learning and seeking ways to improve training and roll-outs for new brands. They still hold regular drop-in sessions to answer questions and to review the request queue to keep the workflow as organized as possible. Overall, feedback from the brands has been very positive, “everybody seems to be able to use it really well, they find the interface really easy to use!”
Moving forward, the team are looking to benefit from more of Summize’s review capabilities. They can see the potential of AI redlining and AI clause redrafts. While they’re confident that AI will not replace their expertise, they know it can provide a strong first pass, which will make the team work even quicker and more effectively.
Even more CLM resources
Learn all about contract lifecycle management in our CLM hub