Construtora Camargo Corrêa simplifies processes with digital signature
Duration of the entire process to create powers of attorney reduced from 15 to 2 business days. Significant savings in document transport costs, signature recognition, copy authentication and paper generation.
Proposed Solution
SSaaS Solution (Software as a Service)) for Digital Signature and Workflow through the QualiSign Portal.
Client’s Need
Streamlining document management and simplifying processes.
About Construtora Camargo Corrêa
With a presence in Latin America and Africa, Construtora Camargo Corrêa is a company dedicated to the execution of large-scale projects with high logistical, construction and engineering complexity. In more than 70 years of experience, its portfolio includes some of the most important works in the Energy, Industrial Construction, Oil & Gas, Mass Transportation and Sanitation segments, among other segments. In its portfolio, developments such as the São Paulo Metro, the Rio Negro Bridge, the Tucuruí Hydroelectric Power Plant, the Cumbica Airport, the Brazil-Bolivia Gas Pipeline, the Juriti Bauxite Mine and numerous refineries' expansions and highlights stand out. With approximately 30 thousand professionals, Construtora Camargo Corrêa has the principle of applying management policies in its works that result in obtaining the main certifications for quality, occupational safety and health, the environment and social responsibility.
The Experience
Popularization of the use of smartphones as work tools, increasing the participation of videoconferences to replace business trips and biometrics to access buildings and rooms. More and more, the routine of executives is taken up by new technologies that help make the process less bureaucratic. At the headquarters of Construtora Camargo Corrêa, one of the largest companies in the heavy construction sector and specialized in large and complex works, a new resource has made life easier for directors and vice-presidents. The use of digital signature in electronic documents was the method identified to streamline document management and adopt a sustainable and innovative solution.
Through the system, the distance of more than 3 thousand kilometers that separates the headquarters of Construtora Camargo Corrêa, in São Paulo, from the work at the Jirau Hydroelectric Plant, in Porto Velho (RO), is already overcome in a few minutes. If the complexity of guaranteeing the arrival of supplies at the construction site still requires a logistics exercise, as the works are often located in remote locations or even in other countries, the Building Company Legal Director was able to circumvent the release of documents and contracts by developing a pioneering project in the heavy construction sector.
Last year, the company completed the installation of the digital signature for issuing proxies. Currently, a document that lasted around 15 business days from creation to delivery to the holder is now released in up to two days. “The deadline for writing and structuring the text is still the same. But as soon as the power of attorney receives the digital signature of the person in charge of the area, the document is electronically released for the holder to use,” explains Marcelo Vicentini Marchetti, the manager responsible for the hiring area, in the Legal Department of Camargo Corrêa.
The second stage of Construtora Camargo Corrêa's digital certification has already started: it will take the benefit to the company's 5,000 suppliers. In December 2012, the first contract with a supplier for purchasing equipment was signed. The product was intended for the Jirau Hydroelectric Plant project and the entire process was done electronically, without the need for any type of physical displacement of papers. The next step is to enable, by the end of this year, construction managers to use the system. In the first phase of the project, only directors and vice presidents are authorized in the digital environment.
“We opted to start the process from the Board, to break any kind of resistance that could show up on the construction sites. In addition to serving as an example and encouraging managers to use digital certification, directors are already qualified to visualize all new contracts that are generated online,” says Marchetti. Contracts, powers of attorney, agreements, amendments and a multitude of documents are now monitored by managers in real time, remotely.
When the government regulated digital certification in 2001, a rapid popularization of the system was expected. That is not what happened. Although most companies are able to use it because the IRS requires a certification, the practice is not common in the heavy construction market in relations between suppliers and construction companies. The banking system and insurance companies are still the sectors that use the tool the most.
The great benefit of using technology is the reduced bureaucracy. The person in charge of signing the contract is notified by email and uses a token to validate the document. The system itself notifies the next person who must sign it by email, and so it goes. The contract manager tracks all steps in real time. Once the process is complete, the document is available online for people authorized to view it.
The digital signature has the same legal validity as a contract with a notarized signature. The difference is that there was no need to queue and use any sheet of paper, and the parties do not have to travel to sign a document. “Before that, a holder would need to travel to deliver a power of attorney in another state. This is over,” says Marchetti.
The Construtora Camargo Corrêa headquarters circulates, on average, 200 proxies and contracts with suppliers per month. The estimate is that 24 thousand sheets were saved by adopting the new system. When the process is deployed in all works, the forecast is that more than a thousand contracts per month will be processed in the virtual environment alone.
“We always seek to seek innovation with sustainability and involve our suppliers and clients in this process. This is the spirit and one of Camargo Corrêa's differentials,” says Marchetti. In 2012, the company won the Época Verde Award for its work in reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. Construtora Camargo Corrêa's Carbon Management Plan aims to cut emissions by 37% until 2020.
Another performance gain has been seen in terms of document storage. The company has been leasing space for some years to keep contracts and other documents. With digital certification, the document is stored on the server for a period, and a digital back-up is also maintained. The process also involves savings in the costs of notarization, shipping, certified copies and the lawyer's time in managing the documents.
According to Waldemar Felippe, director of Qualisoft, the adoption of a digital certification by a company the size of Construtora Camargo Corrêa is always a game changer in popularizing the system. The option adopted by Construtora was the QualiSign Portal, which had an area to be exclusively used by company' employees and customized, in order to facilitate navigation and maintain Camargo Corrêa's visual identity.
