As a regional law firm specialised in administrative and public procurement law, Geerts/Denayer was looking for a solution that could handle the legal complexity inherent in the public procurement templates.
Geerts / Denayer turned to ClauseBase to not only optimise its own internal process, but also the ways in which it makes its knowledge available to its clients.
Geerts/Denayer is a small, Belgian regional law firm specialized in all areas of administrative and public procurement law. Geerts/Denayer caters specifically to governmental authorities and companies active in the public procurement sphere. As a dynamic and innovative law firm, they are committed to leveraging technology to better service their clients and gain a competitive advantage.
In the past, Geerts/Denayer utilized a wide range of MS Word templates to create documents related to public procurement law (e.g.: tender & contractual documents, letters, etc.). The variable elements in these templates were colour-coded to assist the user in creating a concrete document out of them. The consequence, however, was that an entire page had to be devoted to explaining the different uses of the different colours (e.g.: orange text is for a works tender, blue text is for a services tender, etc). This approach made for an often confusing and error-prone way of working. Furthermore, it quickly became clear that MS Word was ill-suited to the management and updating of the knowledge contained within these templates.
With these problems in mind, Geerts/Denayer started to look for a better solution, one that could handle the legal complexity inherent in the templates it had created. First, they tried specialized public procurement software. The problem with this existing software was that it focused too much on the management of a procurement process and not enough on the drafting of complex documents. This is when Geerts/Denayer started to look in the direction of ClauseBase.
Johan Geerts, managing partner, said:
“The search for the right tool was a long-term quest for a more innovative and modern solution to knowledge and clause management, but also the deployment of that knowledge. We turned to ClauseBase to not only optimise our own internal process, but the ways in which we make our knowledge available to our clients.”
In record time, Johan Geerts became an expert in the automation of complex legal documents, which prompted ClauseBase and Geerts/Denayer to join forces in creating a white-labelled solution called “TenderBase” (www.geertsdenayer.be/online-diensten/tenderbase).
TenderBase features the complete template library previously constructed in MS Word by Geerts/Denayer, but with the added bonus of intelligent automation and reusable clauses. Not only does this make the firm that much more efficient in creating new documents; it can also update its templates much more efficiently and can provide a central platform to its clients where the complete library of documents is made available.
Clients who wish to create a document from one of 26 available template documents need but select it from the library and fill out an easy-to-use questionnaire to generate a document tailored to their needs. Maintenance and continued compliance of the intelligent templates with public procurement law is guaranteed by Geerts/Denayer, making TenderBase the ideal one-stop shop for any company or governmental entity that is frequently confronted with complex tender processes.
Johan Geerts, managing partner, said:
“By launching TenderBase, we were able to create new ways of servicing our clients and generating revenue, all while also optimising our own internal processes. Initial market feedback has clearly shown a need for a solution like TenderBase and we are excited to see what the future holds as we continue to build the service.”
By teaming up with ClauseBase to create its own, white-labelled solution TenderBase, Geerts/Denayer managed to solve one of the most persistent problems in traditional template management: updating and deploying the knowledge contained within.
TenderBase documents can be created by filling out an intuitive list of questions, and clauses that appear in different templates can be reused and updated centrally.
At the same time, the firm has monetized this improvement of its template management by creating a unique service offering to its clients.
In doing so, Johan Geerts has demonstrated that it is not necessary to wield enormous innovation budgets and have committees of multiple lawyers working in tandem to create a new service: a single lawyer with enough ambition and commitment can make the necessary difference.
