Case Study: How AccentCare improved contract visibility and renewals management

The Gatekeeper team added tremendous value throughout the implementation process and surpassed my expectations. They did all the heavy lifting.” - Scarlet King, Senior Director of Strategic Sourcing.

Name: AccentCare
Location: United States
Description: AccentCare is a national leader in post-acute healthcare services. They provide at-home home health, hospice, and personal care services. They have more than 24,000 employees in over 165 offices across the United States.
Key Stakeholders for Gatekeeper: Sourcing and Supply Chain Teams

Summary

AccentCare is an acquisitive company in the Healthcare sector and is continually working to integrate new businesses and their associated contracts into its portfolio.

This was presenting significant challenges to the team as they attempted to stay on top of contract obligations and renewal dates, while simultaneously aiming to consolidate costs and agreements across the wider group.

Without a dedicated software solution, this process was unworkable and the central Sourcing team were encountering a range of issues including auto-renewing contracts they were unaware of and being unable to locate contract documents within the business.

They selected Gatekeeper, following a rigorous selection process specifically to address the issue of contract visibility and to drive automation of the renewal process to make sure it was reliable.

Gatekeeper delivered against these twin objectives and ticked the boxes for their extensive list of desired features.

As long-term Gatekeeper customers now, AccentCare still consider the implementation and support offered by the Gatekeeper team to be exceptional and has been impressed by the breadth of knowledge to help them optimise their processes.

Why Gatekeeper?

1. To bring control and visibility to their contracting processes. A lack of centralised repository and automated renewal management was costing AccentCare dearly. Without a clear understanding of all their existing contract commitments they couldn’t confidently apply their cost-consolidation strategy and integrate new businesses into the group effectively.
2. The best fit with their list of desired features. AccentCare’s list of desired features had more than 50 individual points they desired for their chosen solution. Gatekeeper was the only platform that supported these needs in both the short and long term.
3. The scalability of the Gatekeeper solution. Knowing that the business would continue to grow, they needed a solution that would scale with them. Gatekeeper’s unlimited user model and on-demand infrastructure was a great match for this as well as the level of best-practice advice the Gatekeeper team could offer from working with other comparable businesses.
   
   

The Full Story

AccentCare is a successful healthcare company from the US, whose growth has been fuelled by multiple acquisitions. Integrating new businesses into an organisation can be challenging from a variety of perspectives, from personnel changes right through to IT system alignment.

One area requiring particular focus before, during and after an acquisition is contracts. Bringing businesses together in this way should necessitate an objective review of both organisation’s contracts to consolidate, terminate or negotiate better terms where possible.

The time and level of organisation required to conduct these activities thoroughly was not possible at AccentCare and as they grew, the scale of the issues grew too.

Lacking a central repository and with contracts scattered across the business, the team at AccentCare were unable to appraise their contract portfolio effectively.The business also had multiple contracts auto-renewing that they weren’t aware of in advance, such was the volume of agreements they’d inherited from other businesses. This was of course costly, but also embarrassing to have to request copies of contracts from suppliers so they could understand their obligations.

Even once they’d set up a series of key-date reminders in their calendars to prompt timely action on contracts, it was apparent that they needed a more specialist system as contracts were still falling through the cracks.

They therefore came to market aiming to find a solution to achieve these two high-level goals:

• Gain visibility of all the business’s contracts.
• Have automated renewal notifications sent to contract stakeholders.

In addition to solving for these two main issues, they created an overall list of requirements which covered eight high-level areas:

1. Contract Visibility
2. Information Security
3. Repository Capabilities
4. Contract Negotiation
5. Views and Reports
6. Data Structure
7. Alerts & Notifications
8. Bulk Upload/Download of contract documents

AccentCare’s selection process was extremely thorough, comprising an initial RFP and then further rounds of appraisal.

With five companies initially being screened, they created a shortlist of three and finally selected Gatekeeper as the best fit for both the short-term and as an ongoing partner.

Since working with Gatekeeper, one area that the team at AccentCare have been particularly impressed with has been the support and implementation of the solution.

“Implementation surpassed my expectations…” says Scarlet King, Senior Director of Strategic Sourcing, “... the Gatekeeper team added tremendous value throughout the process. They advised on best practices relating to items such as data structure and other areas that we hadn’t even thought about. They did all the heavy lifting, which freed up my team to work on delivering other initiatives.”

With the Gatekeeper solution rolled out, the team at AccentCare have been able to gain the visibility they wanted over their contracts, using both the dashboards and the reports, as well as staying fully on top of all their renewals via automated reminders.

This has been a big win for the team as they seek opportunities for cost savings year over year. It also removes previously unscalable administrative work, freeing up their time to focus on more strategic supply-chain initiatives.

The more advanced capabilities of Gatekeeper such as online redlining (eNegotiate), eSign and workflow messaging are also pivotal for AccentCare as they continue to acquire companies and grow in size.

“We’re delighted to be working with another great organisation in the Healthcare industry, particularly one as acquisitive as AccentCare. Acquisitions are key moments for any business and create huge opportunities but also risks relating to contracts, data and migration. It’s great to be able to provide the necessary rigour around the process for AccentCare and help them to continue to succeed,” says Patrick O’Connor, CEO at Gatekeeper.

For more information on how Gatekeeper is helping its customers manage their contracts effectively, contact us today.