Why entity management is tailor made for digital transformation

Legal has finally embraced digital transformation and it’s paving the way for new operational models. Today’s legal teams see some responsibilities carried out exclusively by humans, while others are handled by software and platforms. The legal function is becoming an ecosystem of capabilities with humans and machines working side by side.

The work that comprises entity management should be tailor-made for software and automation: rote and administrative tasks that are highly repeatable but take an inordinate number of hours for teams to complete. In our experience, entity management is often siloed, with responsibility broken up between geographies and departments with little central oversight by the people back at HQ. Harmonizing it under one unified platform software adds control and certainty to fragmented processes.

As legal teams make the digital leap, weaving in entity management just makes sense. The benefits of an entity management platform can include:

• Dynamic task management: Automatically tracking deadlines that need to be actioned and capturing changes in status or personnel that need to be reflected immediately in corporate records and filings.
• Auto-generate key documents: Create and share information summaries with regulators and tax authorities. Automate country and company workflows for key processes in every jurisdiction.
• Improve collaboration: Build secure shareholder and board meeting portals with integrated secure messaging and reporting.
• Ready for surprises: When non-standard issues or questions arise, access a community of global experts who can provide the answers.
• Digital simplicity: Full electronic management of key tasks like document legal compliance review, process and project management, electronic signature collection, e-document filings, legalizations, apostilles and notarizations.

The business value of those capabilities can be impressive. Consider a scenario where a new CFO is coming onboard.

In a large company the CFO could have responsibility for 30 countries and might have a board-level role on each national division. In order to formalise their role, a series of documents would need to be completed and filed with local authorities. However, the documents required for financial disclosure, licensing, and registration in Japan may be different from those required in France, different again for Brazil, and so on.

Without an entity management platform, the process of activating the new CFO’s position will have to be actioned manually, step by step, country by country. With an entity management platform, the process becomes immensely faster and simpler.

Documents can be generated, completed, and signed electronically, even when multiple signatories are needed. The entire global process can be managed by a single project manager using the platform’s dashboard. No deadlines are forgotten. No documents or details are missed. And at the end of the process, the entity management database is updated automatically with the latest corporate information. The new joiner receives the previous CFO’s login details, dramatically simplifying handover and onboarding.