A major trend in the legal industry has been the growth of alternative legal service providers and, in particular, legal process outsourcing companies. A 2019 report by Thomson Reuters documented the accelerated growth of ALSPs in recent years, noting that two years ago, the sector was still nascent and poorly defined, but that now ALSPs make up a market that is “better defined, quickly growing, and broadly adopted.”
News today from Microsoft Corporation and the legal process outsourcing company Integreon underscores the extent to which major corporations are working with LPOs.
The two companies have revealed that, over the course of a 10-year partnership, Integreon has grown its Microsoft operation from a single U.S.-based specialist team in 2009 to now providing managed legal services across five delivery centers on three continents and in 14 languages worldwide.
Microsoft first contracted with Integreon in 2009 to support its Global Contracting Office (GCO) with a team based in Fargo, N.D., providing contract lifecycle management (CLM) services. There, Integreon implemented a team for drafting, negotiating, and managing certain categories of Microsoft’s high-volume, low-risk procurement contracts. That relationship has continued ever since, with Integreon operating as an extension of Microsoft’s GCO, while expanding both the in-scope categories of contracts and range of services provided.
A year later, in 2010, Integreon took over Microsoft’s internal help-desk services, while gradually expanding both its geographic coverage and languages supported. During 2013 and 2014, Microsoft worked with Integreon to select and install a new CLM system, after which Integreon took on the role of providing ongoing administration and intake support for the new platform. Microsoft also engaged Integreon to provide contract review, data abstraction and migration of about 22,000 agreements to the new system.
In 2014, Integreon opened offices in Mumbai to support Microsoft contract administration services, and then in 2017, opened offices in Manila to support Microsoft in the APAC region.
In 2018, Integreon scaled up to take on an increased volume of Microsoft’s contract reviews to ensure compliance with the GDPR data protection regulation. Most recently, Integreon has worked to support and maximize Microsoft’s own tools, such as its automated contract helpdesk LexiBot, and to leverage new technologies such as, robotic process automation and artificial intelligence tools such as Kira.
As of today, according to the two companies, Integreon:
- Employs nearly 80 dedicated Microsoft associates who review up to 24,000 contracts annually.
- Manages up to 90,000 contract entities in Microsoft’s CLM platform annually and completes up to 14,000 contract help desk resolutions per year.
- Operates five delivery centers for Microsoft in Fargo, N.D., Charlotte, N.C., Bristol in the U.K., Mumbai, and Manila.
- Provides support in 14 languages including English, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish.
In announcing this news today, Bob Rowe, CEO of Integreon, said that he is proud of the decade of results Integreon has achieved on behalf of Microsoft.
“Microsoft and Integreon have built a strong partnership based on trust, quality and performance, and we are committed to securing that relationship and evolving it in a positive direction,” he said.
Jason Barnwell, Microsoft’s assistant general counsel-legal business, operations, and strategy, talked about his company’s work with Integreon on a recent episode of his Business of Law podcast.
“Our global contracting office supports the procurement and contracting legal team within our corporate legal group,” he said. “This service allows our legal department to serve Microsoft’s need for procurement contracting velocity, volume, and compliance. Integreon is a critical partner for this work.”