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How Cloud Academy Uses CMS And Risk Analysis To Manage Their Contracts

3X

Faster Contract Reviews

200%

Close Deals Faster

$134,000

Estimated Savings In Outside Counsel
Company
Cloud Academy, Inc.
Company Size
300+
Industry
SaaS, IT
Funding
Revenue
$30 M+
Location
San Francisco, United States
Features
Red Flag Table™, Contract Summaries, CMS and Automatic Reminders
Contract Types
MSA, DPA, License

Introduction

Cloud Academy is a ‘Skills Intelligence Platform’ that is designed for tech teams of all sizes and provides the best hands-on learning for Cloud, DevOps, Software Development, and more. Their platform allows customers to personalize everything they need in their paths, roles, and skills.

CloudAcademy wanted a better way to manage their contracts and identify potential risks involved without the need to manually review each contract. So they decided to look for a solution to achieve this.

The Story of Cloud Academy and SpeedLegal

In terms of contracts, Cloud Academy majorly dealt with Master Service Agreements (MSAs) which were reviewed manually and needed a lot of cross-functional communication between various departments.

With the growth of Cloud Academy year over year, the number of contracts and agreements that needed to be dealt with also grew. These could no longer be handled manually as it took a minimum of 3 days behind each contract.

Another problem they faced was the continuous back and forth changing of minor terms to finally come to an agreement, and since these contracts were negotiated over email, it took weeks to get both parties to agree and sign a contract.

They wanted a better way to manage these contracts and identify risks without the need of spending days behind each contract.

Challenges Before SpeedLegal

Cloud Academy had 4 major pain points before using SpeedLegal

  1. No structured process for contract reviews.
  2. Lengthy and time-consuming process of manually reviewing each contract when dealing with clients or vendors.
  3. High billable hourly charge of outside counsel.
  4. Lengthy negotiation process preventing them from closing transactions faster.

Why Cloud Academy Chose SpeedLegal

In the very beginning, Cloud Academy tried to use Google Drive. They sent Google Docs as contracts to clients, vendors, or external counsel during contract negotiations and reviews. 

Problem with Google Drive:

  • Lack of central repository to maintain a record of all the changes done to a contract, and keep them all in one place.
  • Hard to track whether everyone's signing on the latest contract, since contracts were mailed to all members.

Then, they tried Nomio, which is a contract repository tool that helps to store and find contracts easily and get a summary of them when needed. Even though it solved their central repository problem, Nomio had it's own limitations.

Problem with using Nomio:

  • No risk analysis feature that Cloud Academy needed.
  • No use while contracts were being negotiated, as it only stored executed contracts.

That’s when they came across SpeedLegal. Once they had a walkthrough of the product, they immediately realized that it was a holistic solution to all their contract management challenges.

They could identify risks, get automatic summaries and manage all their contracts in one place without the need of using 3 separate tools, which would have again made it a complicated process.

“The first time I was looking at SpeedLegal, I thought, WOW! That’s the perfect solution that can support us in reviewing contracts and help our sales organization close deals faster.”
Serena Rossetti
VP of Finance at Cloud Academy

How Cloud Academy Uses SpeedLegal

Cloud Academy’s team started using SpeedLegal at the end of January, and by the end of February, they became proficient in each of the three major functionalities.

  • Review: They started off by automating their contract reviews and using the Red Flag Table™ to jump to the important parts of the contracts. This helped them speed up the review process and now deals can be closed much faster.
  • Manage: They used SpeedLegal’s CMS as a central contract repository to keep all the contracts in one place where they could be easily searched when needed. Automatic reminders helped them stay on top of all contracts and ensured they were being renewed, terminated and signed on time.
  • Understand: “SpeedLegal is a product that can support everyone in properly reading and understanding contracts in an easy way - bringing the legal world to the real world. It gives you easy access to the legal world” - Serena R., VP of Finance at Cloud Academy.

Results

When Cloud Academy started using SpeedLegal for their contract reviews, management, and risk analysis, they immediately observed the boost in efficiency in their internal legal processes.

  • Better Contract Management: It helps them keep track of renewals and terminations of all their contracts and reminds them about the same in advance so they renew/terminate the contract on time. SpeedLegal also helps them store their critical and essential data and acts as their Data Room in case of a merger or acquisition takes place.
  • Structured Process: They are able to manage all their contracts and agreements in one place and get a high-level view of each one of them whenever they need to. They can quickly identify the main clauses of the contracts and red flags on them so they know exactly what they are signing up for.

  • 3X Speed: Their contract reviewing and negotiating time has been reduced from 3 days to 1 day. This helps them close deals faster and as a result, grow even more.

  • Reduced Costs: Since the Legal processes take 1/3rd of the time and efforts now, the cost of hiring outside counsel is reduced, and even their in-house teams perform more efficiently.
“SpeedLegal is your Partner to have all legal matters under control.”
Serena Rossetti
VP of Finance at Cloud Academy

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What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

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