Why Business Intelligence Has Been Hiding Inside Your Agreements

[00:00:04] - [Speaker 0]
After spending the day at DocuSign Momentum in London, one thing became increasingly clear to me, and that is the conversation around enterprise AI is changing. For the last couple years, we've been asking what AI can create. But today, the message I kept hearing was a very different question from customers, partners, and business leaders. It was much more about how can AI help organizations make better decisions with the information that they already have. And throughout the day, I heard remarkable consistent themes.

[00:00:43] - [Speaker 0]
Legal teams want to spend less time on routine reviews. Sales teams want fewer bottlenecks. Procurement teams are looking for greater visibility into obligations and renewals. And tech leaders, well, they are not asking for another AI tool. They're asking how AI becomes part of their everyday workflows that already run inside their business.

[00:01:08] - [Speaker 0]
And there was a great, comment on one of the posts I put on LinkedIn from the co founder of SubSig, and he was saying that the organizations seeing the most value right now seem to be treating AI as an operating improvement, not a standalone initiative. And I think this is an incredibly important distinction. And that brings me to my guest today, who leads DocuSign across Europe, The Middle East, and Africa, and has spent more than three decades helping organizations use technology to help transform the way that they are already working. And our conversation today, refreshingly, isn't about AI hype or futuristic predictions. It's about where businesses are creating measurable value today, and why agreements have become one of the biggest blind spots in digital transformation, and why the next chapter of enterprise AI could be much less about generating content and more about understanding what already exists inside the business.

[00:02:14] - [Speaker 0]
Well, enough from me. Let me introduce you to my guest right now who I sat down with at DocuSign Momentum in London.

[00:02:24] - [Speaker 1]
Thank you for joining me on the podcast here today. For everyone listening, can you tell them a little about who you are and what you do?

[00:02:31] - [Speaker 2]
Yeah. Thank you, Neil. So my name is Stefan Barboury. It's not going to make me younger, but I have actually spent the last thirty years helping European organization to transform their business using technology in different capacity, in different verticals. But that has been my my mission in the past thirty years.

[00:02:50] - [Speaker 2]
And what has been always fascinating for me is not really the technology itself. It's actually all business and all the businesses are using it. So and creating value, obviously, because you sell technology to create value with customers. So today, I run DocuSign for EMEA for Europe, Middle East, and Africa. And our mission as an organization is actually to move our customers beyond simply digitizing the agreements, but make them intelligent, make them actionable, make them executable.

[00:03:21] - [Speaker 2]
So every business, every single business on the planet runs on agreement, as you know. And whether it's a customer contract, it's a separate relationship, could be an employee contract, an employee relationship as well. AI is giving the opportunity now to transform this agreement from static documents into intelligent business data into a business context.

[00:03:45] - [Speaker 1]
And organizations right across Europe have invested heavily in digital transformation over the past decade. So why are agreements still creating so much friction inside otherwise very modern businesses?

[00:03:56] - [Speaker 2]
Yeah. Indeed. So it's I believe today is probably one of still of the biggest blind spots in the digital transformation. All of the companies that we know, they have all invested a lot and probably overinvested in the past decades in ERP, CRM, financial application, HR application, all of that has been done, and they have invested a lot. But the agreements that are connecting all of the systems are actually still manual in most of the time.

[00:04:25] - [Speaker 2]
So think about all of the major business processes. Could be hiring someone, could be closing a deal, could be buying from a supplier, could be launching a new partnership. They all end with an agreement. Everything is an agreement. And if those agreement are still depending on the MACE, they sit on PDF, they sit on files, they sit on mailbox, and they are all on manual approvals.

[00:04:48] - [Speaker 2]
The entire business is actually slowing down, and this is creating friction in the business. So that's why I often say that agreements are the operating layer of the enterprise. And until you modelize this layer, the digital transformation could not really go to the end.

[00:05:04] - [Speaker 1]
Now you describe contracts as hidden business infrastructure. So from what you're seeing, where are organizations typically losing value today, possibly without even realizing it?

[00:05:15] - [Speaker 2]
Yeah. That's true. So most of the people assume that the biggest problem is how fast it could be done. Is signing contracts too slowly is the main problem. I'm not saying it's not a problem.

[00:05:25] - [Speaker 2]
It's actually a problem, and being faster is a good thing to do. But actually, this is only the beginning. And the real loss of value is actually happening after the signature, not before the signature. So revenue get missed. Commercial obligation are not tracked, obligation in general are not tracked, teams don't know what commitments they have made really in the contract because they sit somewhere that is not accessible, and really opportunity actually disappear.

[00:05:50] - [Speaker 2]
So this is where really the biggest loss of value is happening is actually after the signature, not before the signature of the contract.

[00:05:58] - [Speaker 1]
That one statistic that particularly stood out to me was organizations using AI driven agreement workflows are seeing around a 30% higher return on investment. So where does that improvement actually come from in day to day operations? Anything you can share share there?

[00:06:15] - [Speaker 2]
Actually, the biggest gains that we see are coming from removing the friction from the agreement, removing the friction from the connectivity of all of these agreements. So it would be Ligueye team spending less time in reviewing these agreements. It would be sales closing deals faster. It would be procurement identifying, you know, where they are spending opportunities, where there is gaps in the closes. It would be HR automating the onboarding.

[00:06:40] - [Speaker 2]
It would be that kind of thing that would be really removing the friction. And the executive, in general, will gain a lot of visibility across thousands of agreements. So individually, if you take all of these processes individually, the improvement could seem incremental. But when you gather everything together, this is a fundamental change in all of the organization operating their business.

[00:07:05] - [Speaker 1]
And one of the things I love about what you're doing at DocuSign is I think you've got a unique vantage point because you're working across so many different industries. So I'm curious, which industries across Europe are moving faster, and what lessons can maybe people listening in in industries are a little bit behind? Maybe that that would help them as well. Anything that you're seeing here? Are some moving faster than others?

[00:07:27] - [Speaker 2]
No. So we actually see traction in all sector, all verticals. So, yes, some industry, I would say, have moved earlier with us like financial services. If you take financial services in general, they are focused on governance and risk management, and we've been always, you know, a very good partner from that perspective. But today, if you take health care, they would be looking at compliance, operational efficiency.

[00:07:49] - [Speaker 2]
Manufacturing, we want to improve the supplier collaboration. So it's actually happening everywhere. We don't see a sector that is behind. There is interest being raised absolutely everywhere. Executives are calling us as well.

[00:08:02] - [Speaker 2]
Like, the level of people that we are talking within the companies has dramatically changed, and the executive are becoming very, very interested in knowing the way we can help making their data more intelligent in the context of their businesses. So it's really all sectors that are that are really picking up very quickly.

[00:08:19] - [Speaker 1]
Wow. That's an incredible point there. All sectors Yeah. All racing with adoption. And when some business leaders listening hear terms like AI transformation, they often expect huge tech projects, late projects, overspend.

[00:08:33] - [Speaker 1]
That's what they might have in their mind. So where do you recommend organizations start if they really just want to hit those measurable achievements, the measurable goals, and do it quickly, then

[00:08:42] - [Speaker 2]
I think a big mistake will be to think that you can change everything overnight. Yeah. Yeah. And starting with, like, a generic AI program. Like, I'm gonna be changing all of my business through AI.

[00:08:52] - [Speaker 2]
That doesn't work. That doesn't exist today. And, yes, we see we we know the expectation that agents will negotiate with agents tomorrow and all of this stuff, but you need to start somewhere. And you need to start with one workflow that actually matters for you. That's something that is miserable.

[00:09:08] - [Speaker 2]
So it could be reducing the contract time, for instance, could be the supplier onboarding, could be the customer agreements. But you need to pick someone where you can measure the impact. If you can measure the impact, then it's gonna probably go nowhere. From there, you build the confidence, you build the trust with your team, with your ecosystem, and then you can expand and you can scale. And the organization that will be successful tomorrow or today are not the one that are going to like to start to want to start to automate everything overnight.

[00:09:37] - [Speaker 2]
Again, it's not going to work. You need to solve a meaningful business problem. You need to measure the outcome and scale from there.

[00:09:45] - [Speaker 1]
As an ex IT guy, you're speaking my language. I also read before I met you today that you've spoken about things like productivity, resilience, reducing risk. So if a CEO was to ask you today, how could they tell within maybe six months whether their agreement transformation was genuinely making a difference, what would you tell them to measure?

[00:10:06] - [Speaker 2]
I would probably tell them to measure success on three things. First one will be speed. I said speed is not enough, but speed is important. So you need to make sure that your agreements are moving faster using a technology like IAM for DocuSign, for instance. Is it moving faster?

[00:10:22] - [Speaker 2]
Yes. It's a checkbox already, and you need to make it work. Second would be the productivity. Our employees spending less time on manual administration because the expectation using technology like us will be to spend much less time on these manual tasks that are not bringing a lot of value in the organization. And the last one will be the business outcome because if there is no business outcome, there is probably not a lot of value in what you are doing.

[00:10:46] - [Speaker 2]
So are you reducing your risk? Are you improving your revenue? Are you improving your compliance? There are the kind of questions that needs to be answered, and they need to be the outcome of such a project. So, ultimately, AI should not be just a technology.

[00:11:02] - [Speaker 2]
It needs to make the business better, and this is what the CEO should be taking care of.

[00:11:07] - [Speaker 1]
Love it. Fantastic advice there. And if we were back here at Momentum in twelve months' time, what changes do you think would convince you that agreement intelligence has generally become a part of that mainstream enterprise AI? At one point I've heard repeatedly today is stop seeing contracts as documents, see them as business intelligence, but what would need to happen next year to think that has been adopted?

[00:11:32] - [Speaker 2]
Yeah. Well, I believe that if we no longer are talking about AI as a separate initiative Yeah. We're making a long way. It's it's gonna be a giant leap. AI, in a way, we need to become invisible.

[00:11:43] - [Speaker 2]
And the day becomes invisible, the day becomes seamless in the organization, then everything is changing, and the job will get done. So much like cloud computing today. Today, you're not really asking, like, what kind of cloud I'm using, like, whether it's private, it's hybrid, it's public cloud, that if it is on public cloud, whether it's on Azure or Google Cloud or whoever, you don't really pay attention to that. It has become very, very much invisible. And I think that in our end, if we succeed to do the kind of the same, we'll be in a very, very different position.

[00:12:16] - [Speaker 2]
So the organization that would be leading the market won't be talking about AI project. They will be talking about the business outcomes.

[00:12:23] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. We've talked a lot today about what people, what businesses are going to be taking away from Momentum. What about yourself? When you take that journey home, what are you going to be thinking about when you reflect on all those conversations that you've had with so many people here? Anything you're to be thinking about on the way home?

[00:12:40] - [Speaker 2]
Yeah. I believe that the pace of change will be like the main one. A couple of years ago, when we are talking about the road map with customers, we were very cautious about not mentioning things that we are not 100% sure are going to happen even on our side. Then, of course, we take all of the safe harbor statements about the road maps and all of that. But today, we can really freely discuss about road maps with customer because we know that there is a possibility that what we say tomorrow is not gonna be valid the day after tomorrow.

[00:13:10] - [Speaker 2]
So the pace of change is very, very rapid. Things are changing, like, almost overnight, and we need to keep the pace. So that's what I'm getting from the customers. Like, share with us. Like, even if it is not completely dry, even if you're, like, making small adjustment to your road maps, share with us in advance because we we wanna be there.

[00:13:30] - [Speaker 2]
We wanna participate on that with you, and we wanna be part of the journey with you. So that's one of the major change that we see.

[00:13:36] - [Speaker 1]
Wow. I love that collaboration Yeah. And partnership ethos you've got there. And for anyone listening, maybe you wanna find out more information about anything we talked about today, connect with you or your team. Any way you would like me to point everyone?

[00:13:48] - [Speaker 2]
Well, you have the docusign.com website, which is which is very good. And the team is making sure that it's it's very updated with the latest information that we have. So you will have, of course, information about our solution or products, but customer stories and practical guidance on on the way we manage agreements. And, again, I would really encourage every single customer, every single partners, every single of your listener to test something with AI. It has become more easy to give to give a chance to the AI to do something for you.

[00:14:19] - [Speaker 2]
So test something, do something, and with the outcome, let's make it better.

[00:14:23] - [Speaker 1]
I completely agree with you. One thing I always say is the pace of technology and AI, it can feel overwhelming. Book test, experiment, roll up your sleeve, have a little play, see where it can deliver value. So I'll include links to the event, Momentum, the DocuSign website, LinkedIn as well for both you and DocuSign. I encourage people listening to go check those out.

[00:14:42] - [Speaker 1]
But more than anything, thank you for taking time from the show floor to come and sit down and talk with me today.

[00:14:47] - [Speaker 2]
Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

[00:14:49] - [Speaker 0]
So after spending the day talking with customers, executives, and attendees at Momentum, I came a cray I came away with three lasting impressions. First, enterprise AI is becoming much more practical. The discussion is moving away from demonstrations and towards solving real business problems that people encounter every day. And second, agreements are starting to be viewed differently. They're no longer just documents that need signing.

[00:15:19] - [Speaker 0]
They're becoming a source of business intelligence that can help organizations improve decisions, reduce risk, and uncover opportunities that have often remained hidden for years. And finally, maybe the biggest lesson from my day at Momentum is that successful AI adoption is not about replacing people. It's about removing friction. That's what's being removed here. And then, people can spend more time doing work that genuinely creates value.

[00:15:50] - [Speaker 0]
So whether you are listening today and you are in legal, procurement, sales, HR or technology, I think this is a conversation worth paying attention to. And if today's discussion has sparked any ideas in you, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Where are you seeing AI create the greatest business value inside your organization today? Please drop by techtalksnetwork.com. Send me an audio message.

[00:16:18] - [Speaker 0]
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[00:16:38] - [Speaker 0]
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