CBC transforms global contracting across 35 countries

Founded in the late 1800s, CBC has been perfecting the art of beverage manufacturing and distribution for over 140 years. Expanding over 16 countries, multiple continents, and an expansive product portfolio including products from PepsiCo and Anheuser Busch, CBC is the largest beverage distributor across Central America. 

While CBC’s longevity and reach are clear indicators of success, the company attributes much of its growth to its principles of meritocracy, sustainability, and following the guiding light of ethics and transparency. These values stretch far beyond the manufacturing line, remaining fundamental for the entire organization from business units like finance and operations, to any partner or vendor relationship they engage in.

The challenge

With their foundational principles in mind, CBC found themselves auditing their entire procurement process from start to finish. After their initial analysis, CBC uncovered kinks in the technology they were using to onboard and manage their vendor relationships. Users involved at different steps of the contract lifecycle found their current application difficult to use, time-to-signature was too long, and cross-functional teams lacked visibility, ultimately causing contracts to get stuck somewhere along the way. 

“We had a project internally to check on the benchmarks of each part of the purchasing process. We were having challenges with the process and user interface in [their legacy system], it wasn’t easy or user friendly.”

– Jorge Lopez, Project & Technology Specialist, CBC

Beyond the difficulties uncovered across procurement, the disjointed nature of the different systems meant both the legal and technology teams were inundated with support tickets and information requests. Without the flexibility to customize their current system, even simple contracting questions came directly to senior, already overburdened resources. 

Legal teams were also working diligently to mitigate risk, but when distributing to over 35 countries, managing templates and clauses across different jurisdictions was becoming increasingly difficult. Ultimately, members of procurement, legal, and technology created a cross-functional contracting dream team to attack their challenges head on.

The solution

The CBC team knew they had outgrown their current platform, and they hit the market for a tool that was uniquely poised to handle their contracting problems but was also robust enough for the configuration, complexity, and power that CBC needed for their global operation. After consulting with analysts and evaluating the providers on the market, the team narrowed it down to three of the leading Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) platforms for a deeper look.

“We started with around 40 or so and had a digital screening process. We took information from tools like Gartner and Forrester and from that we started to interview new tools, we only want to bring world class tools into the company.”

– Fernando Molina, Purchasing Department COE Manager, CBC

After extensive research, there was only one solution that seemed to consistently meet the requirements and flexibility that CBC was looking for: Agiloft, along with its partner Koho Consulting, stood far above the rest on functionality, flexibility, and the proper industry knowledge required to get the project across the finish line. It was official: CBC, Koho, and Agiloft set to work to transform the contracting process across the board for the CBC team. With invested stakeholders from across the business operation, the new CLM wish list was extensive, but with Koho’s expert knowledge and Agiloft’s foundational capabilities, a dream contract process was on the horizon.

“They just had all the knowledge of [Agiloft]. Even if they didn’t have an answer in that moment, the next day or within hours they’d come back with an answer or solution. That, and having a partner that knows how the legal part works in Latin America, how the purchasing process differs from the US, it was just fantastic.”

– Jorge Lopez, Project & Technology Specialist, CBC

Each team had their own top priority. For procurement teams it was the ability to access only relevant contracts and easily understand more about the obligations, expirations, and general details of the contract and business relationship. For Legal, it was the ability to create complex, conditional workflows to ensure that both contract template creation for new contracts, and signature requests on third party documents, were relevant and accurate to their governing body, mitigating risk across the entire organization. Finally for the technology team, they were hoping to integrate the CLM system and contract data itself with other relevant solutions in CBC’s tech stack, liberating valuable data to the broader organization and significantly reducing individual information requests from the currently, technologically disjointed teams.

“Pepe and his team know very well how to use the integration, and our users wanted to know – okay I have this contract for purchasing but how much have I purchased right now? Have I completed the contract?”

– Jorge Lopez, Project & Technology Specialist, CBC

The impact

As CBC launched the new contract process to their team, they introduced LEX, an internally branded term that encompassed the entirety of their new contracting operation, to drive excitement and adoption across the organization. For the first time, a true end-to-end solution was introduced to the teams. Each individual stakeholder saw their requirements come to fruition; with Agiloft integrated directly with CBC’s sourcing platform, users could provide valuable information to initiate a self-service contract request; that request initiates the automatic drafting of a contract, based on the information provided and a set of complex and conditional rules create a contract template, in the correct language and with the right, local governing law and requirements. Thanks to the integrations the team built, relevant contract information flows into the correct systems of record, ensuring teams can access the data they need, while maintaining broader security and segmentation among their differing brands and geographies.

“Koho was always open and attentive to our requirements, we’re complex and they were always happy to take the time to listen to us and find a way to get a solution to us, it’s always awesome to work with them.”

– Fernando Molina, Purchasing Department COE Manager, CBC

Beyond those initial requirements, CBC went a step further by creating reports and dashboards for relevant teams, like “Contracts Expiring in 30 days,” to reduce administrative overhead and help their teams be proactive. They even created a process where custom notifications, in both English and Spanish, were sent to teams to ensure there was never a lapse in service. The legal team was able to improve their SLA time by providing external teams with more, timelier information, and the ticketing system with legal requests now included relevant individual contract details. Also, they were able to work directly in Microsoft Word, an important feature for lawyers. Finally, the technology teams saw a significant reduction in requests overall, because the systems were talking to each other as intended, and teams felt empowered to answer questions with accurate, up-to-date contract information.

“We are lawyers and we love [Microsoft] Word, and the Word integration for me, I was surprised. It was the strawberry on the cake, just very very good.”

– Catherine Romang, Legal Department COE Manager, CBC

The CBC can’t say enough about their experience with the Koho team and the Agiloft system as a whole – but the story doesn’t end here. Grounded in meritocracy, and sustainability, CBC plans to continue their innovation journey by adding some of Agiloft’s AI features into their current workflow and continue to see how they can integrate additional systems in their tech stack to further the impact of their new contracting process.

Challenges

Procurement teams were in the dark with no visibility into contract status or details

Information requests and support tickets were overwhelming technology and legal teams

Geographical legal intricacies meant legal had to touch every single contract

Individuals were managing contracts in disjointed systems, causing contracts to lapse or fall out of compliance

A lack of flexibility and partnership with their outdated system provider prevented any future improvements across their organization

Benefits

Integrations into foundational systems create radical visibility for all

External teams are more informed and self-sufficient, and legal and technology can focus on high-value items

A sophisticated workflow handles legal complexities to standardize templates, alleviating stress and mitigating risk

Teams are proactively managing contracts, preventing service interruption and analyzing reports for new opportunity

CBC found a true partner with Koho including a former lawyer with extensive knowledge of the intricacies across Latin America and a truly enterprise solution with Agiloft, with plans to leverage more of Agiloft’s AI capabilities and expand integrations in the future

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