The Digital Imperative: Series Recap

Kerie Kerstetter

In this series, we explored a simple question: Why has entity management software seen such a meteoric rise throughout 2020, when most cloud services, aside from a lucky few, have seen a decline in usage?

The answer took us from an analysis of rising regulation and corporate complexity to the need to adapt to remote work, and the role legal operations teams have to play throughout it all. What we arrived at is the world isn’t simply more complicated—it’s more complex. The difference being, there aren’t just many moving parts, but all those moving parts are each connected. It’s created an environment where to move at the speed at which business moves today, legal teams must be armed with software and automation.

It’s the only way for them to actually do more with less, but it’s more than a defensive play. Legal automation frees counsel up to become a more strategic advisor to the business in all realms, and an invaluable source of advice.

In this world, organizations need legal teams to lead. While not the only answer, entity management software is a tremendous asset in doing so.

Here’s a look back on the series:

  1. 36 Statistics That Spell Certain Doom for the Entity Spreadsheet

This year was a terrible one for three-ring binders and spreadsheets. The pandemic and remote work are responsible for a six-year leap forward in digital transformation, reports Twilio, and 67% of organizations plan to make remote work permanent, says S&P. Meanwhile the burden of compliance continues to climb. The Chartered Governance Institute finds there was a 492% increase in regulations from 2008 to 2015, and the curve is only growing steeper. This all spells doom for entities managed by spreadsheet.

  1. The End of Entropy: Creating Corporate Structures that Improve With Wear

It is a law of thermodynamics that all things decay with time. But do they have to? With entity management software, teams are discovering they can deputize officers to distribute data responsibility and create a central corporate record that’s good for lots of other things. Once available and true, entity data can create its own virtuous cycle where it grows more true and more complete with time.

  1. Fear For the Future: A Vision of a World Without Entity Management Software

Who are the 60% of organizations that aren’t using entity management software? And how will they fare when the five horsemen of the digital decade—regulation, governance, cybersecurity, remote work, and economic unrest—make work more difficult to manage?

  1. The Rapid Rise and Bright Future of Legal Ops

Legal operations teams don’t get nearly the attention or resources they deserve. As the legal team grows more important and must manage all parts of a digital organization with hundreds of entities spread across the globe, they represent just 0.03% of total employees. Legal Ops are how they make do.

With strong legal operations, companies:

  • Optimize tax costs
  • Pay less for outsourced legal
  • Experience lighter audits
  • Fend off unwarranted litigation
  • Experience fewer cyber attacks
  1. Entity Management is a Team Sport

Every business unit benefits when legal teams have timely and accurate entity data. But how do legal teams get their buy-in? Entity management is a team sport with implications for the overall effectiveness of the business, but it takes a tactful approach to convince sales, marketing, and HR that more legal review can actually make life easier for them.

  1. Dear ‘Do More With Less’ CEOs. Can We Talk?

Just about every legal team has been given some version of the “Do more with less” mandate, even now, as they’ve never been more critical. But what if the CEOs giving these orders have interpreted it wrong? What if doing more with less is more than simple labor arbitrage, and instead begins with investment?

  1. Future Perfect: A Vision for What Legal Teams Can Achieve

The pinnacle of entity management maturity is something we here at Diligent are calling the Automation phase. It’s here, after companies have centralized their corporate record and encouraged self-help access to data that they can begin handing off minor duties. To the delight of many, automation doesn’t put them out of a job—it makes them more strategic leaders.

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Working with Diligent’s entity management tool can help you to surface the right information to the right people at the right time in order to both complete routine business processes and inform business strategy decisions using real-time entity data. Get in touch and request a demo to see why Diligent Entities is the market leader in entity management solutions.

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Kerie Kerstetter
Kerie Kerstetter is a former Senior Director at Diligent and the Next Gen Board Leaders. She has done extensive work into how governance and ESG technologies empower leadership to make informed, data-driven decisions while mitigating cyber risk. Kerie was one of the founding members of Boardroom Resources, the premier educational resource for board members, acquired by Diligent in 2018.