Few things create more pressure for Sales and Revenue teams than deals slipping into the next quarter. The problem is rarely intent, it’s time. When contracts stall in review or approval, momentum fades, forecasts miss, and revenue recognition is delayed. This report shows how leading European companies have redesigned their contract process to protect deal velocity and shorten cycle times by up to 25×.
Why Sales Leaders Should Care
The Cost of Every Extra Day
Every additional day between quote and signature increases risk. Deals lose momentum, champions move on, and sellers spend more time chasing approvals than customers. Yet in most organisations, the contract stage still relies on manual steps, long email threads, and overworked Legal teams. The result is frustrated sellers, inaccurate forecasts, and delayed revenue.
Why “Too Complex to Automate” Is a Myth
Many organisations keep these manual processes because they believe their deals are too complex to automate. But complexity is exactly where automation creates the most value. Modern CLM technology can replicate intricate approval hierarchies, conditional clauses, and multi-entity workflows without losing control or compliance.
The Problem with Email Approvals
In many companies, internal approvals are still handled in long email chains meant to create a record of consent. But if the email is lost, there is no approval. When approvals happen outside the contract system, in email threads, Slack messages or disconnected tools, traceability disappears. Internal approvals exist to document decisions, yet scattered communication makes it impossible to maintain a reliable audit trail.
Centralising Approvals to Preserve Control
Centralising approvals inside the contract workflow preserves accountability, ensures transparency, and eliminates the risk of missing approvals or acting on unverified approvals that slow deals and increase compliance risk.
The companies featured here found a better way by automating approvals, giving teams self-service capabilities, and standardising templates without adding risk. They turned contracting from an administrative burden into a driver of sales velocity.
“When contracts move quickly, salespeople stay focused on customers, not admin.”
Observation from Precisely customer interviews
Why Contract Speed Matters
Research from Boston Consulting Group (2024) shows that nearly 40% of corporate deals now take longer than planned to close, often requiring up to three additional months. The causes vary, from compliance checks to internal approvals, but one recurring friction point is the contracting stage, where documents wait for review or signature.
Every delay weakens momentum. In B2B sales, that means slower revenue recognition, colder relationships, and deals quietly slipping into the next quarter.
According to World Commerce & Contracting, companies lose on average up to 9% of annual revenue due to inefficient contract management. Industry benchmarks further show that manual contract workflows can delay deal completion by several weeks.
In short: slow contracting costs real money.
Sales Acceleration Highlights
Three Moves That Separate Top Performers
1. They scale contracting without slowing down deals
Adverity is a fast-growing SaaS company that helps global brands turn marketing data into insights. As deal volume increased, manual contract handling became a bottleneck for all business-critical teams.
By automating workflows with Precisely, Adverity achieved a 25× faster contract turnaround, and now half of all contracts require no Legal input. That means internal approvals no longer block commercial progress, and teams can focus on customers instead of document management.
“Being such a fast-growing company made me quickly realise that I needed to automate our contract management … and get rid of any repetitive work, as well as any mistakes when different teams were working together.”
Adverity
Precisely insight: Removing repetitive contract work freed up time across departments, ultimately helping Sales and Customer teams close faster.
Impact:
- 25× faster turnaround
- 50% fewer contracts needing Legal
- Stronger scalability for revenue operations
2. They empower business teams to close faster
NA-KD, one of Europe’s fastest-growing fashion brands, manages hundreds of partner and supplier agreements every month. Before automation, even a simple NDA took 10 minutes to set up and always required Legal assistance.
With Precisely, any business department can now generate a fully compliant, ready-to-sign contract in under two minutes, reducing manual work by up to 80%. For partnership and commercial teams, that means less waiting and more focus on moving deals forward.
“Setting up a simple NDA used to take 10 minutes, but with Precisely it takes less than two – from generating the agreement to sending it for e-signing.” NA-KD
Precisely insight: Self-service contracting removes dependency on Legal and helps Sales maintain momentum from quote to signature.
Impact:
- Up to 80% faster contract creation
- Faster partner onboarding
- More time for commercial work
3. They protect speed and control at scale
Key Solutions is a Swedish sales agency with hundreds of sellers working across markets. Before automation, every rep managed contract templates manually, which created errors and compliance risk.
With Precisely, Key Solutions introduced one unified, approved contract process across the entire organisation. They now spend up to 90% less time creating contracts and up to 99% less time managing and updating templates, allowing the business to scale without slowing down sales.
“Using the wrong template or agreements ending up in the wrong hands can result in significant legal expenses.”
Karvan Guldstierna, Head of People, Key Solutions
Precisely insight: A single source of truth means sales teams always use the right version – faster, safer, and fully compliant.
Impact:
- 90% less time creating contracts
- 99% less time maintaining templates
- Lower risk across all sales channels
Quick Self-Check: How Fast Is Your Quote-to-Close Process?
- Can your sales team generate contracts without Legal’s help?
- Do approvals take longer than the negotiation itself?
- How often do deals stall after the verbal “yes”?
If any of these sound familiar, your contract stage could likely move 10× to 25× faster with better automation and structure.
“In every company we studied, reducing contract friction directly improved sales velocity.”
Precisely Benchmark Finding, 2025
Action Checklist: 5 Ways to Speed Up Deals Without Adding Risk
- Automate approval workflows
Manual reviews and email threads slow everything down. Use structured, automated workflows so contracts move through Legal, Finance and Management without waiting in inboxes. - Let Sales generate contracts themselves
Give reps pre-approved templates inside your CRM or CPQ so they can create compliant contracts without depending on Legal. - Standardise templates and clauses
Keep one central library of approved templates to reduce errors, shorten negotiations and build trust. - Bring visibility to every deal stage
Dashboards and alerts reveal bottlenecks in real time so you can act before deals go cold. - Turn Legal into a sales partner
Involve Legal early, align on goals and use shared data. The best teams see Legal as an enabler, not a blocker.
See How It Works in Real Life
The companies in this report accelerated their sales process by removing contract friction. You can do the same, and it starts with seeing it in action.
