E-signature services take to the stage at Atelier Théâtre Actuel
Atelier Théâtre Actuel is a prolific award-winning theater company. The company has received 19 Molière Awards since 2015, puts on 25 shows and 700 performances per year, attended by more than 500,000 people, both in France and abroad.
Atelier Théâtre Actuel modernized its contract management by adopting Adobe Acrobat Sign so that the company can now get contracts out to nearly 400 workers every month faster, and get them signed quicker and more securely.
Ensure that contracts are signed, while speeding up and simplifying the process
Atelier Théâtre Actuel was founded in 1971, and now has 18 full-time staff and employs hundreds of workers every season. Nearly 400 contracts are drawn up every month, and all of these must be signed before every performance – prompting the need to streamline their entire contract management process.
“We would send out hard copies of these contracts by post. And just before the first performances, unsigned documents would always be missing. This took up considerable time, and we had to do a lot of chasing them down,” says Thibaud Houdinière, co-director of Atelier Théâtre Actuel.
Ensure that documents are tracked and get rid of manual tasks
Adobe Sign emerged as the preferred solution. Some employees were already using Adobe solutions, and adding Acrobat Sign completely met the company’s needs.
“The goal was to save time — for our own teams as well as our casual workers — tracking and managing the contracts. Now that we’re using Adobe Acrobat Sign, artists no longer lose their contracts,” says Houdinière.
The contracts are sent to workers electronically so they can sign them at any time. They can even do so on their mobile phones or tablets. They are then countersigned by the theater’s management. Modernizing the process has created three key advantages, the most important being a more efficient contract management. Production administrators no longer have to print out documents, put them in envelopes, and mail them.
Save time and secure the process
Sharing information electronically removes previous time-consuming steps. Contracts can be sent out faster — as soon as they are generated. Their recipients are guaranteed to receive them, and there are no risks of anything getting lost in the mail.
“Sometimes it would take several weeks to get a contract signed. With some 400 contracts every month, that would cost us a considerable amount of time. We have brought contract processing times down to just a few days,” explains Houdinière.
Processing signed contracts also takes less time: they are immediately archived on the theater company’s server, whereas previously they had to be scanned first and then archived manually. The processing time saved by contract managers can now be spent on more important tasks.
Going digital so people can work on the move, saving time and money
In a field where, by definition, artists, technicians and production directors are very often on the move, being able to verify and sign contracts on a mobile phone is highly efficient and saves a lot of time.
“Now I can sign contracts wherever I happen to be, whereas previously, I could only do it manually when I was at the office. That means a great deal of flexibility,” says Houdinière.
This new approach allows Atelier Théâtre to achieve substantial savings. It has reduced its printing costs by 25 percent and drastically reduced its postage costs — by 75 percent.
Refocus on creation and production
Now, all information about contracts is exchanged electronically. Getting the teams and employees to start using Acrobat Sign was straightforward and fast. It simplifies and modernizes the way contracts are signed, improving the way information is shared between stakeholders.
“Adobe Acrobat Sign secures the whole process, guaranteeing that contracts are received, authenticating their signature, and making it easier to archive them. That saves us a great deal of time so we can focus on creating and producing our shows,” says Houdinière.