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Over €30,000 saved, 95% less time spent searching for contracts - and 100% ISO-compliant. Wire shows how strategic contract management not only saves time, but also directly reduces costs. With ContractHero, the company has digitalized its contract processes, automated deadlines and created clear responsibilities. The result: greater efficiency, full transparency and a stable basis for further growth - even under high security requirements.
Wire offers highly secure messaging, call and file sharing solutions for regulated industries, critical infrastructures and the public sector. The platform with end-to-end encryption meets the highest data protection requirements and is ISO/IEC 27001 certified. With around 150 employees, Wire has an international presence - including locations in Germany, Switzerland, France and the USA.
In August 2024, the company opted for ContractHero as its central contract management solution - with the aim of streamlining processes, reducing risks and creating complete transparency across all contracts.
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Before the introduction of ContractHero, contract management at Wire was highly fragmented: Contracts were located on different platforms - sometimes even in private folders - without a central structure. The result: lengthy search processes and considerable additional work for the finance and legal team. In addition, contracts were often stored under inconsistent names - which made searching even more difficult. There was also a lack of overview of redundantly used tools: Different departments were using similar software in parallel, which led to avoidable additional costs.
"Contracts were often scattered around - sometimes in private drives. After staff changes, we no longer had access and spent an enormous amount of time searching."
A key problem was the lack of deadline management: notice periods were regularly overlooked, contracts were automatically extended - and in some cases continued to run for years even though they had long since ceased to be used. This lack of transparency led to concrete financial losses. In one case, a superfluous contract caused annual costs of 15,000 euros over three years. Without a central overview and automatic reminders, there was no basis for identifying and avoiding such expenses at an early stage.
In addition to operational hurdles, there was also a structural weakness: specialist departments had no direct access to their contracts - all inquiries were handled centrally by Finance or Legal. There was no documented roles and rights concept, which was particularly critical in the context of ISO certification. The consequences were noticeable during audits: uncertainty, additional work and avoidable risks.
"If an auditor notices that it takes a long time to find a contract, they will take an even closer look. This is precisely why it was so important for us to improve our governance and compliance processes."
Responsibility was not clearly distributed internally either. Specialist departments could not view or manage their contracts themselves - they were completely reliant on the finance team for deadlines or queries. Clear responsibilities - and therefore real ownership - were lacking. This led to delays, coordination problems and an increased susceptibility to errors.
To counteract the initial contract chaos, Wire has bundled all contracts centrally in ContractHero. The platform automatically reads documents and indexes them so that all relevant information is available quickly and precisely. Thanks to the powerful full-text search, contracts can now be found in seconds without having to rummage through countless documents. With contract analysis and document recognition, important contract details such as terms, notice periods or renewal clauses are automatically extracted. These functions enable Wire to quickly identify contracts and ensure that no relevant information is overlooked.
"It now only takes seconds from logging in to finding the document - and I know immediately that it's the right contract. I used to search for 10 to 15 minutes and still wasn't sure."
A decisive advantage of ContractHero is the automatic deadline recognition. Notice periods, terms and renewal clauses are reliably identified and directly stored with reminders. This ensures that no deadlines are missed and the company can act proactively before contracts are automatically extended. Assigning responsibilities for contracts to the respective departments - such as HR, Marketing or Engineering - ensures that each department fulfills its responsibilities. "I let the departments know in good time that a contract will be extended in three months. Then you can ask whether that's what they want," says Maria, describing the new process. Thanks to this transparency, Wire was able to identify and terminate unnecessary contracts.
ContractHero also impressed Wire with its rights and role management, which enables precise control over who can view or edit which contracts. This is particularly important with regard to ISO certification and compliance, as it ensures that only authorized persons can access certain contract data. With the ability to delegate tasks directly to employees via the system, clear ownership structures can be created so that each department takes responsibility for its contracts. "I give ownership to the line managers, but keep an overview," says Maria, describing the new process.
The export functions for audits and ISO-compliant documentation make it easier for Wire to make external audits more efficient and ensure compliance with safety standards. ContractHero's security standards include ISO/IEC 27001 certification, GDPR compliance and hosting all data exclusively in the EU. This ensures that all sensitive contract data is protected with the highest security precautions.
"Compliance with strict safety standards was an important issue in our organization - and ContractHero easily met these requirements."
This improved structure also enabled Wire to identify and terminate unnecessary contracts. For example, a contract costing €15,000 per year was terminated, saving a significant amount of money. By automatically identifying deadlines and clearly assigning responsibilities to the relevant departments, Wire was also able to prevent contracts from being extended unnecessarily, resulting in further savings. For example, Maria states that around three percent of costs were saved.
By implementing ContractHero, Wire was able to drastically reduce the time spent searching for contracts. Today, this entire process - from logging in to finding the desired document - takes only seconds, which is 95% faster than before. This significant time saving allows the team to focus on other tasks and work more efficiently while increasing the reliability of contract searches.
Another remarkable result was the dramatic improvement in contract coverage. Before the introduction of ContractHero, only around 35% of contracts were centrally recorded in the system. Today it is 98%, which leads to a much better overview and control.
The introduction of ContractHero has not only helped Wire to optimize its processes, but has also helped to further strengthen the company's security standards. Particularly with regard to ISO certification and compliance requirements, ContractHero enables precise assignment of access rights. This ensures that only authorized persons have access to sensitive contract data, which enables Wire to meet the high security requirements.
"ContractHero takes our contract management to a whole new level. Contracts are transformed from soulless documents into living potentials. This frees up liquidity so that hhpberlin can work even more agilely and develop even faster."
This efficiency pays off: In the first three months alone, hhpberlin saves up to 50,000 euros, and a total of 100,000 euros in the first year. But ContractHero not only improves administration, it also turns contracts into a strategic tool. The finance department recognizes redundancies at an early stage, uses synergies and optimizes investments in a targeted manner - a decisive advantage for a growing company with complex contract structures.
With ContractHero, Wire has not only digitized and centralized its contract management, but also significantly increased efficiency and transparency - and thus, as Maria emphasizes, "created the basis for being able to scale at all." Automated processes, structured deadline management and clear responsibilities have helped the company to find contracts more quickly and avoid unnecessary costs. Wire shows that digital contract management is far more than just an administrative task. It is a strategic tool that increases efficiency, reduces costs and provides greater security at the same time. ContractHero offers a powerful solution for companies that not only want to manage their contracts, but also optimize them.
"We are absolutely satisfied - both myself and my team. ContractHero does exactly what it promises. During onboarding, we weren't promised any features that weren't available later."
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