BMW Group France digitalizes its business processes with Adobe Acrobat Sign.

“This is a project to transform our working methods, which not only increases our efficiency but also reduces the administrative workload for teams and provides a modern employee experience,” explains Laurian Guillon, HR Manager, BMW France.

BMW Group France has around 1,000 employees across four business units: BMW France (the distribution subsidiary for the BMW, MINI and BMW Motorrad brands in France), BMW Financial (the group’s captive financial arm), BMW Distribution, and Alphabet, the business vehicle leasing subsidiary. In 2020, BMW Group France opened its new headquarters in Montigny-le-Bretonneux, on a site in keeping with the group's ambitions. It includes an autonomous smart building, designed to limit energy losses, reduce its carbon footprint and meet the needs of new working habits and employee mobility. E-signature is part of a global project to digitalize working methods and change practices.

“Our work is currently organized on the flex office principle, mobility and remote working. Some business processes need an e-signature solution to work in this way. This also met the company’s requirement for a global environmentally friendly approach, advocating paperless processes,” explains François Houdeau, IT Delivery Manager, BMW Group France.

Until recently, signing processes were totally manual, with paper documents being sent by mail, and then the signed documents being returned by the various parties and scanned.

This slow, costly process was inefficient and unreliable, as many documents came back incomplete or were lost during the process. “Some of our contractual documents have 150 pages of schedules, which have to be initialed one by one. This is time-consuming and can lead to errors. Digitalization can be complex at Alphabet France, because it involves booklets which are non-detachable to guarantee their authenticity if there are disputes,” says Carole Payan-Kokkinos, Senior Legal Counsel, BMW Finance.   

The company issued a local call for bids for the French subsidiaries and assessed the solutions based on seven main criteria:
 

1. The possibility of rolling out the solution internationally
2. Helping to ensure data security and GDPR compliance
3. Helping to ensure the security of signatures, in accordance with the eIDAS regulation
4. A simple, user-friendly solution, to facilitate employee buy-in
5. The ability to interconnect with existing solutions
6. The ability to sign from anywhere
7. The cost

The process is now rigorous, efficient and above all, completely transparent. The employee creates and edits the document, such as a declaration of employment, the end of a probationary period, a statement or a certificate. Most HR documents are included in the process. The recipient can then complete the document, sign it and return it to the sender, without leaving the DocuWare environment. “Our aim is to cut down on administrative tasks. With the integration of Acrobat Sign, the process is digitalized from end to end, right through to signing and archiving.” The employee experience is being brought up to date and made more efficient, and the group has implemented a dashboard providing direct access to its HR documentation in the EDM system. Employees can create and edit their own documents without bothering HR, which can then focus on its core role.

The use of Acrobat Sign has been rolled out to other business areas, including legal, purchasing and sales. There are now 10,000 documents that require e-signature each year, for around 150 active users. 

“Acrobat Sign is really easy to use. There are substantial time savings for both the sender and the recipient of the document, with signing times cut from a month to an average of 24 or 48 hours. And that doesn't include the time saved on handling, keeping track of contracts or checking,” explains Fabrice Lambert, Senior Legal Counsel, BMW Group France. There is less risk in terms of compliance, since Acrobat Sign seals the whole document.

“This is crucial from a legal point of view, as we can be confident that all the pages have been initialed and that no schedules are missing. We know who has signed and when,” says Carole Payan-Kokkinos. The legal department can track the document, check the authenticity of the signature, and archive an electronic document, guaranteeing its integrity, and that it meets essential compliance requirements if there are disputes.

Managing the change was made easier by the simplicity of the solution, which is administered by the IT department. Employees who require an account authorizing them to use Acrobat Sign can access a help package, developed by IT, detailing best practices. It includes procedures for using the tool, the Adobe training webinar on the solution, an online knowledge base and, if needed, personalized support.

“We wanted an intuitive solution that would be easily accepted by employees. The changeover was very easy to manage. Employees, as well as external recipients who have to sign a document with us, all grasped how to work with it immediately. It is very flexible,” says Aurore Jean-Marie, IT support and communications manager.