THE ADECCO GROUP STORY

From Fractured Contracting Processes Across Regions to a Centralized, Consolidated CLM Platform

The Adecco Group is one of the world’s largest talent and workforce solutions providers, helping organizations recruit, develop, and manage talent across more than 60 countries. Headquartered in Switzerland, Adecco serves clients and job seekers through permanent and temporary staffing, outsourcing, career transition, upskilling, and workforce consulting.

For Adecco, CLM centralization and consolidation were a global governance and scalability initiative. The company had historically managed contracting through local processes, region-specific templates, email-driven workflows, and manual controls. That decentralized model created risk as global client expectations increased, regulatory requirements became more complex, and the business needed reliable contract data to power reporting, forecasting, and AI-enabled decision-making.

Adecco consolidated its contracting workflows into a Salesforce-embedded CLM ecosystem powered by Icertis. The transformation impacted commercial teams that create contracts, legal teams that govern risk, and operations teams that rely on downstream contract data. To ensure the transformation realized value across its regions, roles, and regulatory environments, Adecco partnered with Whatfix to guide users through approved workflows directly within its contract platform.

Luke Sinclair, Global Legal Ops at The Adecco Group, explained, “Instead of having to make 50 different guides and 50 different videos, we can just make one video and one guide, and then pinpoint and tailor that workflow. That made it much easier to support how different countries actually learn.”

THE CHALLENGE

Manual Training Couldn’t Support a Multi-Region Enterprise CLM Rollout

Adecco’s legacy contracting processes depended heavily on local knowledge, static documents, manual templates, and human review. Information moved through release notes, local managers, agency representatives, and end users, which could delay, dilute, or entirely miss critical guidance.

The Salesforce-embedded Icertis rollout also introduced a complex “app-in-app” enablement challenge. Users needed guidance inside a CLM experience embedded within Salesforce, across different roles, contract categories, languages, and local regulatory requirements. Classroom training and static documentation were too slow and generic for that level of process variation.

The highest-risk issue was data governance. If users entered incomplete or inaccurate contract data, downstream legal, operational, reporting, and AI use cases would be weakened. Poor data quality at the source created a chain reaction: shadow processes re-emerged, reporting became less reliable, and trust in the new system weakened before adoption could stabilize.

Adecco also needed to reduce dependency on central legal and IT support. Commercial teams needed to create contracts faster, legal teams needed to shift from manual data entry to contract oversight, and operations teams needed cleaner contract data to support execution after signature.

THE SOLUTION

Persona-Based Enablement Layer Embedded Into CLM Workflows

Adecco partnered with Whatfix to enable users directly inside its Salesforce-embedded Icertis CLM ecosystem. Instead of relying on users to remember regional rules, contract policies, and approval requirements, Adecco provided in-workflow guidance so users could complete approved steps with less friction and fewer deviations.

Whatfix supported three critical pillars of Adecco’s CLM transformation:

• For contract creation, users were guided through the right data inputs and contract setup steps.
• For contract approvals, users were supported on how to complete required actions correctly the first time, reducing back-and-forth between sales and legal and eliminating rework.
• For contract termination, Whatfix reinforced data integrity at the end of the contract lifecycle, where missed or incorrect steps can create downstream risk.

Adecco also used Whatfix to deliver localized, persona-based enablement at the moment of need such as:

• Sales teams received guidance to reduce friction in contract creation and accelerate deals.
• Legal teams gained support that helped them move from repetitive manual support toward oversight and governance.
• Regional teams received tailored guidance that reflected local business and regulatory requirements.

Sinclair, who led the CLM user enablement project, described Whatfix’s flexibility: “Whatfix is very, very easy to use. There isn’t really a problem they can’t solve, and if it hasn’t been done before, there’s always a team I can work with to find a solution.”

THE RESULTS

Adecco Group Realized Its Vision from Its CLM Transformation With In-App Guidance and Workflow Support

With Whatfix, Adecco achieved measurable business outcomes from its CLM transformation, including:

40% higher overall CLM adoption across teams and regions

With Smart Tips, Pop-Ups, and other in-app guidance and workflow support, Adecco increased CLM user adoption by 40%, helping users move from uncertainty about the new CLM environment to confident use of the system.

Faster start-to-finish contract cycles

It also reduced average contract cycle time by 50%. That improvement mattered because contract velocity directly affects commercial execution. By guiding users through the right steps to create, review, approve, and manage contracts, Adecco reduced friction throughout the contracting lifecycle and enabled the company to realize its ultimate vision for the contract transformation initiative.

Strengthened contract workflow governance

Adecco achieved 98% compliance with mandatory clauses in contracts, helping ensure risk controls were applied consistently and that contract records remained enforceable and auditable. The organization also reduced manual, email-based status-chasing by 80%, improving visibility and reducing the operational drag caused by fragmented communication.

Reduction in CLM IT support burden

Adecco saw an approximately 40% reduction in support queries per 100 users in the first 90 days, demonstrating that embedded guidance and self-service support enabled users to resolve questions without escalating to central teams.

CLM transformation value realization

Luke Sinclair summarized the adoption impact: “We’ve seen a 40% increase in user adoption. At the beginning, no one really knew what CLM was, but with Whatfix’s Smart Tips, Pop-Ups, and in-app guidance, we’ve been able to significantly increase adoption.”

Adecco’s CLM transformation demonstrated the real value of digital adoption in enterprise software rollouts: users followed the right process, entered better data, relied less on support, and helped the business realize value from a global CLM investment more quickly.