How Valmiki Group enhances contracts with Zoho
Valmiki Group centralizes storage and automates contract renewals with Zoho
Valmiki team executes nearly 80 contracts in a month. Dealing with multiple types of contracts signed with students, universities, agents, and counselors, it was getting difficult for the team to store and organize its contracts and keep track of renewals. With Zoho Contracts, the team is now able to bring their contracts to a central repository, streamline their processes, and stay on top of renewals.
About the company
The Valmiki Group has been in the overseas education industry for 23 years. Over the years, the company has also moved to offering immigration services, digital marketing, smart learning, and hosting education fairs. Today, the company has three branches across Hyderabad, India. With more than 130 employees, the company has sent thousands of students overseas.
The challenges
Scattered contracts
Nirupama and her team sign various types of contracts with consumers as well as businesses. While the team enters a contract with students, fairs, and universities on the B2C side, on the B2B side, it signs contracts with agents and counselors who leverage Valmiki's network to send their clients abroad.
The major problem faced by Nirupama's team was to store all of these contracts in a single space so they could be accessed quickly when needed.
Missed renewals
Before adopting a contract lifecycle management (CLM) tool, the company kept missing out on renewals because there was no automated reminder system. On average, the company would renew at least 10 contracts a month. It was difficult for Nirupama to keep track of renewals because some contracts would get renewed automatically, some would need to be renewed manually or verbally, and some might get renewed after three or five years.
"Before adopting a contract management system, we were maintaining contracts as physical copies or as soft copies maintained in an Excel [spreadsheet]. Universities would often raise the contract and share it as a PDF, expecting a signed and scanned copy, or sometimes a digital signature. While we were putting efforts into managing this process, we were missing out on renewals."
The solution
A centralized database
The central repository offered by Zoho Contracts addressed the major concern for Nirupama's team when it comes to control and visibility. With a single central place for all their contracts, and simple and easy-to-use search and filter options, Nirupama's team could quickly access any contract and refer to it.
Automated notifications
The automated reminder mechanism provided by Zoho Contracts was a game-changer for Nirupama's team, who were renewing nearly 10 contracts every month. The monthly calendar that helps the company keep track of all of its renewals and expiry proved to be very beneficial. The team could also provide detailed renewal information and tag a contract as evergreen or manual renewal, streamlining their renewal process.
An all-in-one CLM system: A bonus
While Zoho Contracts addressed Valmiki Group's pain points in the contracting process, the tool served as the unified system that allowed the team to simplify their contract management process. Features such as real-time collaboration, version comparison during negotiation, and digital signatures proved to be a bonus for the team.
"Using Zoho Contracts has really helped us save a lot of time. Our processes are much faster. The tool has also helped our consolidation efforts by ensuring any authorized personnel can quickly access a contract at any time. It has made it easy not just for us but also for our counselors because they are the ones directly dealing with students and need to be aware of when a contract is expiring."
Going forward
Nirupama and her team are working with Zoho Contracts to integrate their existing CRM system with Zoho Contracts using APIs. This will enable their counselors to easily raise requests and look at renewals from the portal.