From Photocopiers to CLM, Xerox Offers LinkSquares to its Customers

So closely is Xerox associated with photocopiers that its name even became a verb, but now it does much more than that….including now offering a CLM software solution to customers through an alliance with LinkSquares.

The offering will be sold as part of its Capture & Content Services and also follows Xerox Ventures’ second investment in LinkSquares earlier this year.

Now you may say: ‘Xerox? Isn’t that a company that’s seen better days?’ And that perhaps is true in some ways, but it’s still a $7bn revenue publicly listed business with operations in 160 countries where they sell hardware, but also a wider range of document-related software solutions. I.e. that’s an impressive partner to have and one that makes a lot of sense if you are also in the document business.

Xerox has an ‘in’ with 1,000s of companies. Those enterprises look to Xerox for help with contracts as much as any other documents they deal with. It’s not a massive leap to then think those customers might find the CLM offering – via LinkSquares – of interest as well.

The company added that: ‘Xerox’s Capture & Content Services provide advanced multichannel capture and process automation, making information available at point of need to enable clients to make better informed and more proactive business decisions. The joint solution uniquely enables users to scan, digitize, transform and enhance contracts and make them available within LinkSquares CLM platform to deliver efficiency in customers’ contracting processes.’

Will inhouse legal teams go for it? Document scanning is one thing, getting into the complexities of preparing legal documents, handling third party paper, and extracting key data from such documents, are not exactly the same thing. But, we will see. Xerox is totally up for it in any case.

Tracey Koziol, senior vice president, global offering solutions Xerox, commented: ‘By leveraging our companies’ technologies, we will enable clients across industries to operate more efficiently as they navigate complex contractual scenarios.’

While LinkSquares underlined that what they could do would be of great practical benefit, including:

  • ‘Replace manual contract filing within their current content management system using cutting-edge automation.
  • Minimise date entry errors and limit (or eliminate) mandatory metadata or contract properties to enter at upload.
  • Leverage tools for event-triggered notifications to improve management of contracts throughout their lifecycle.
  • Easily draft and upload agreements using pre-approved templates, tailored drafting workflows, and a centralised Clause Library with vetted standard clauses.’

Vishal Sunak, CEO and co-founder at LinkSquares, concluded: ‘Through this partnership with Xerox, we’re empowering customers with AI technology that streamlines and automates processes for enormous savings on time and money.’

LinkSquares recently secured $100m in Series C financing, with Xerox Ventures signing on as a repeat investor. This latest round brought LinkSquares’ total funding to $161.5m.

Last thought: while several CLM companies now work closely with the Big Four’s legal ops consulting teams to get an ‘in’ to big corporates, perhaps an equally good strategy is to go this way and work very closely with another corporate? Which makes one ask, who else could help in this way? We’ve seen DocuSign already go down the CLM road, which also makes sense, but they did it by buying and building their own capabilities. But will more corporates do CLM alliance deals as well now like this one?