UK Training Company Reduces Contract Completion Time by 80%

As the United Kingdom (UK) prepares for Brexit, the importance of national skills development and training has never been higher. To better compete in the post-European Union era, the country requires an expert, proficient workforce to drive the commercial success of British businesses of all types and sizes. Lifetime Training, which has delivered quality professional skills training for more than 20 years, actively supports the training goals of both UK businesses and individuals.

A large focus of Lifetime Training is delivering apprenticeship programs and training courses to 25,000 learners per year. As the demand for apprenticeships has increased, so has the number of learning and employer contracts. In addition, the UK’s new Apprenticeship Levy requires employers that earn more than £3 million in annual revenues to contribute a percentage of their payroll toward apprenticeship programs. Before any employee can begin an apprenticeship, employers need to contract with a qualified training provider before. For Lifetime Training, this meant processing up to an additional 300 contracts per month.

To address the challenges imposed by its largely manual contract process, Lifetime Training decided to integrate Adobe Sign, and Adobe Document Cloud solution, with its Microsoft Dynamics 365 database. Through the integration, Lifetime Training automatically and efficiently generates contracts that comply with all applicable regulations.

“Our process with Adobe Sign is efficient, compliant, and creates a professional impression,” says Piran Scott, Divisional Finance Director, Lifetime Training. “The Adobe solution helps differentiate us and supports our position as an industry leader.”

Adobe Sign integrated with Microsoft Dynamics 365 is also being used for generating contracts for the company’s commercial training courses. Lifetime Training agents previously had to customize, print, and mail contracts and loan application paperwork to prospective learners. Once they were reviewed, signed, and mailed back, agents scanned documents into Lifetime Training’s IT system. Unfortunately, some contracts were returned with information or signatures missing or simply got lost in the mail, meaning agents needed to repeat the time-consuming process.

The digital workflow using Adobe Sign and Microsoft Dynamics 365 lets agents prepare and distribute contracts electronically in as little as 30 seconds instead of up to five minutes—a time savings of 90%. Similarly, learners now complete and return in less than one day instead of the previous average of five days. The ability to sign documents on any device adds to the convenience and delivers a strong first impression to learners.

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