How Digitization Elevates Procurement to a Strategic Role at Avis Budget Group

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Table of contents

• 1. Costs: Make broad, money-saving decisions
• 2. Risks: Take the risk out of contract terms, from payments to renewals
• 3. Visibility: Let no contract slip through the cracks
• 4. Less time, more intelligence: Harness the possibilities of AI implementation
• The future of procurement: Digital, automated, intelligent, and strategic

The procurement world is transforming. Long viewed as simply a cost-containment, transaction-oriented role, procurement is increasingly playing a strategic role in helping businesses grow and become more resilient. And intelligent technology is driving the change, providing greater efficiency, visibility, and alignment.

From faster contracting to smoother renewals, digitizing and automating the contract lifecycle frees procurement leaders to spend less time on admin and more time on the big picture. It reveals to them not just excess costs but opportunities for structural changes with ripples across the organization.

To see how this digital shift is playing out in one global procurement operation, we talked to Neal Jeffs, Senior Director of International Procurement at Avis Budget Group (ABG). With a lean team of five, Jeffs manages more than $550 million in annual spend across 20,000 suppliers around the world. He oversees everything from vehicle maintenance and repair, rental locations, and facility management spend, to more than 4,000 employee uniforms.

Read how this leader sees the future of procurement and how intelligent contract lifecycle management-with centralized workflows, AI analysis, and more-is unlocking value across every stage of procurement. This blog focuses on four key areas, each with major business impacts: costs, risks, visibility, and time.

1. Costs: Make broad, money-saving decisions

Today, procurement means far more than supplier negotiations. It touches everything from regional sourcing decisions to ESG strategies. However, the perception of this role has long lagged behind the reality, and pressure on procurement teams is mounting. Many business leaders are turning to procurement to uncover savings and preserve bottom lines in low-margin industries and in times of disruption.

One-off cost-cutting has its limits. It can't provide the long-term salve for business survival and growth. For that, organizations need structural procurement pivots. AI-powered contract management technology becomes the cornerstone for structural transformation with its built-in ability to automate, centralize, analyze, and streamline procurement agreement processes.

Contract technology eliminates manual processes, shortens the time to contract from weeks to days, and allows procurement teams to take on a strategic-level role in the business. The difference doesn't necessarily come across in one or two big wins-it's thousands of small, consistent efficiency wins that accumulate across enterprises. It also frees up time and provides insights to focus on broad cost-reduction decisions like whether to close some locations, how to consolidate sourcing efforts, and how to comply with ESG mandates.

It's a difference that Jeffs experienced firsthand. When COVID-19 hit Avis Budget Group, their business, like many others, was brought to a standstill. This leader in mobility solutions and carsharing (through the brand Zipcar) has 10,250 rental locations in 180 countries. Travel and market disruptions placed immense pressure on Jeffs-who was assigned the procurement leadership role just as COVID hit-and his team to preserve already tight margins. Agile fleet contract management was essential, but their manual, decentralized contract workflows slowed them down at every step. Implementing Docusign CLM, an integral application within the Docusign IAM platform, allowed Jeffs' team to go beyond cost-cutting and institute important structural improvements. This advanced, AI-powered platform coordinates the entire contract lifecycle and provides a centralized repository for all of ABG's procurement contracts, lending unprecedented visibility into procurement decisions.

Instead of only looking for ways to reduce costs, his team now has the insights and bandwidth to look at strategic, organizational changes like real estate optimization and in-house repair processes.

As evidence of how corporate leadership's perception of procurement and optimization has shifted, ABG's new three-year strategy features procurement as one of its pillars for the first time.

2. Risks: Take the risk out of contract terms, from payments to renewals

Manual or paper-based contracting does more than fill procurement's time. It also puts procurement at risk of not understanding its contract terms. An intelligent contract system spotlights these nuanced terms so procurement teams can optimize new contracts, meet obligations, and decide when to renegotiate.

For example, before drawing up a contract, procurement teams need to make sure vendor terms align with the most current company policies, flagging payment terms like Net 30 or Net 60, autorewals (which can go against procurement policy), and any other clauses that may be out of compliance. A contract platform like Docusign CLM automates this tedious but essential analysis, giving Jeffs' team the ability to customize review parameters to their needs. From there, they can easily see where vendor contracts do not align and propose alterations.

"We've taught the system the key terms to look out for. It will do a traffic light analysis-red, amber, or green-so that we can immediately flag, 'Actually, our standard payment terms are 60, and the contract they're proposing says 30.'"

Another crucial blind spot is contract renewals. One of the most common reasons procurement teams search through their contract archives is to uncover details about upcoming renewals and adjust terms to reflect the current state of the business. However, should a contract have been approved (for whatever reason) with autorenewal terms, procurement may not be aware that the contract is rolling over. Without the visibility to review beforehand, the organization can miss their negotiation window and get locked into a less-than-optimal contract for another year.

An intelligent contract platform reduces the danger of autorenewals or not having sufficient advance notice of an expiring contract. Automated alerts of upcoming deadlines are sent out, so no renewal is done without the procurement team reviewing first, and no expiration goes unnoticed. This proactive flagging removes stress and risk-and increases a company's negotiating power. Net-net: it allows procurement to treat suppliers like partners instead of adversaries, with openness and honesty.

Docusign CLM gives Jeffs' team a system for automatic review with notifications about any imminent autorenewal.

"You may not hear everybody say that, but I very much view [suppliers] as partners on a journey, rather than just someone you try to wring out the best deal with. In my limited experience, I've had better outcomes when I've worked with them on a personal human level."

3. Visibility: Let no contract slip through the cracks

The current status quo of procurement contract management is scattered storage systems, spreadsheets, and manual workflows, which boost the risk of human error and lost supplier contracts. Teams are forced to comb through systems of record to locate an agreement or identify vendors, and then examine the exact terms of each deal. Even worse, businesses can completely lose track of vendor obligations, agreement versions, or, in certain cases, the entire contract-and severely compromise margins as a result.

A digital agreement system with a centralized repository gives procurement teams real-time visibility to ensure no contract falls through the cracks. Everyone can quickly search for a specific contract and stay on top of versions, key dates, and terms.

Personnel losses during COVID-19 taught Jeffs this lesson in visibility. ABG lost around 60% of its global workforce and needed to quickly adapt its supplier contracts to better align with the changing climate. However, their storage system-a combination of legacy systems, desk drawers, shared drives, and email-was heavily reliant on specific team members and manual searches. The environment revealed the flaws of their system at the exact moment they needed to prioritize agility.

With Docusign CLM, the procurement and fleet teams now have a unified system of record and the ability to set up sharing workflows across sales, legal, and finance.

"To take the department forward, you have to look at things differently. We're now looking at where we're located, what space we've got in real estate, how many car repairs we can do in-house. That requires big changes, over and above going to suppliers and renegotiating and consolidating. It's a more strategic way of thinking."

4. Less time, more intelligence: Harness the possibilities of AI implementation

Reaping massive efficiency gains, procurement leaders like Jeffs have shifted from caution to enthusiastic adoption of new technologies with automation and AI. Rather than fearing job displacement, they recognize that these tools free up time and reveal new opportunities for structural improvements that elevate procurement into a more strategic role.

At a recent conference, one of Jeffs' industry colleagues estimated he spends around 65% of his time on admin, versus Jeffs' estimated 30% to 40%. No one can totally escape mundane duties, but digitization and AI greatly reduce them so procurement can focus on value adds. Highly detailed work like drafting RFPs, reviewing contracts, and analyzing spend is all eased and accelerated.

AI also goes a step further in transitioning procurement into a proactive role: enabling deeper analysis of supplier relationships, making sourcing decisions based on profitability, and forming ESG-driven supplier relationships.

As part of the Docusign CLM platform, Jeffs can tap into Docusign Iris, a purpose-built AI engine for contracts. IRIS enables procurement to reduce their review time and side-by-side comparisons of key terms from hours to, in most cases, just 10 minutes.

Jeffs already sees prime areas with AI potential: optimizing tire, oil, and parts purchases; being smarter with vehicle repairs and car cleaning; and mining supplier invoices to identify savings and opportunities.

"When you embrace technology and you embrace AI and digitization and take the time to learn it and immerse yourself in it, it can actually help you in the longer term and free up your time to do some of that value-added stuff."

Instead of manually scoring vendor responses, tech can do it for them and uncover other gaps in the strategy. For example, an important use case for ABG is fleet cleanliness. Some car washes use 100 litres of water, while a more environmentally friendly one might use just three litres-and be faster. AI could identify this gap to better contain costs and comply with ESG goals.

The future of procurement: Digital, automated, intelligent, and strategic

Procurement teams are no longer just cost-cutters. Technology is turning them into drivers of structural improvements across global operations.

With contract workflow automation, AI analysis, and centralization, intelligent agreement management reduces supplier risk, eases renewals, and removes administrative bottlenecks.

As procurement leaders harness the advantages of AI and digitization, they'll be able to expand this technology to solve bigger, messier challenges. They can optimize contract terms, shorten cycle times, and support smarter spend decisions-all while reducing their team's workload.

"The key is starting somewhere and having a strong team of partners to help you through the process. Docusign was arm-in-arm with us on the journey."

The Docusign IAM platform provides the AI analysis, real-time visibility, and implementation support leaders need to turn procurement into a strategic arm of the organization. Learn more about how Docusign empowers procurement leaders.