Western District Health Service
Hamilton, Victoria
Like many regional health services, resources are carefully stretched. With tight budgets and busy teams, administrative tasks often take a back seat to the immediate needs of patient and community care. At Western District Health Service (WDHS) in Hamilton, Victoria, this meant that contract management had not kept pace with modernization elsewhere, an understandable outcome of shifting priorities rather than a conscious decision.
Challenge
Over 350 contracts had accumulated across departments; home care packages, medical equipment, allied health, IT, facilities, cleaning, leases, and transport. Most were paper-based. Many were incomplete. Versions sat in shared drives, key dates lived in spreadsheets, and ownership was rarely clear.
Every year in the three months to 30 June, Contract Manager Nick O'Brien spent five full days a week walking corridors, tracking down department heads, chasing signatures, and manually confirming that obligations across the portfolio were current. It was unsustainable, and everyone knew it.
For Nick Starkie, the CFO and Director of Corporate Services, the concern went beyond the administrative burden. Without clear visibility across contract spend and obligations, the organisation was carrying risk it couldn't easily quantify - and absorbing productivity costs it couldn't afford.
What Changed
Within 3 months of implementing Pathways, every contract was located, audited, and centralised. Processes were built around WDHS's existing delegated authority framework, so nothing required a cultural overhaul - it simply gave structure to what was already expected.
Within twelve months, ownership had shifted. Every contract had a named Division Head or Director as owner. Delivery confirmation sat with the person receiving the service. Nick O'Brien no longer needed to chase anyone.
Outcome
The productivity gain was immediate and measurable. Nick O'Brien moved from five days a week managing contracts manually to two half-days a week in Pathways. That's 80% of him time redirected from low value administration back into the organisation.
For Nick Starkie, the benefit was visibility and confidence - knowing that every contract was current, every obligation was owned, and the organisation could face an audit without scrambling.
- 350-plus contracts centralised, correctly executed, and actively managed
- Named owner at Division Head or Director level for every contract
- Delivery confirmation linked to the person receiving the service
- Full audit trail across every supplier and agreement
- Renewal notifications replacing reactive end-of-year pressure
"The more people we have using Pathways, the better productivity gains we make."
Nick Starkie, CFO, Western District Health Service
Snap Print Solutions
Australia-wide
Running a franchise network means managing two distinct contract environments simultaneously. Head office carries the full weight of commercial relationships; suppliers, technology partners, service agreements, and vendor contracts. While each franchisee has their own obligations and compliance requirements. Without an easy-to-adopt system, email-based communication cannot reliably deliver the consistency and visibility that 100+ locations require.
For Snap Print Solutions, the ambition was clear: build the contract and compliance infrastructure to match the standard of service delivery the network is known for, and position Snap as the best-operating franchise in Australia.
The Challenge
At head office, full visibility and control across the B2B commercial portfolio was the priority. At the franchisee level, each of the 100+ locations requires clarity on their own obligations, including renewal and compliance requirements. For example, creating a reliable way to confirm that terms and conditions have been read and understood. Meeting the high standards a best-in-class network demands required an easy-to-adopt solution.
What Changed
Snap implemented Pathways across both environments simultaneously. Head office centralised its full commercial contract portfolio, with structured ownership, renewal tracking, and obligation management replacing manual processes. For the franchise network, a dedicated portal was established giving each of the franchisees direct visibility of their own contracts and obligations (and only their own) while head office retained a complete view across the network. Franchisees can confirm acknowledgement of terms and conditions directly within the platform, creating a full audit trail of understanding across every location.
Outcome
Centralised contract management for head office, with a dedicated franchisee portal giving each location visibility of their own contracts and obligations.
Energy Networks Australia
Melbourne, Australia
Industry associations carry significant responsibility with lean teams. Membership obligations, regulatory engagements, and commercial agreements must all be managed with precision - and the consequences of a missed obligation or undocumented approval extend well beyond the organisation itself.
For Energy Networks Australia, the peak body representing electricity and gas network businesses, contract management had grown complex enough to carry real risk. The contracts themselves weren't the problem. The processes around them were, and maintaining the balance between audit-compliance and employee simplicity was getting hard to manage.
The Challenge
Across a portfolio of 600-plus contracts - spanning member agreements, regulatory commitments, vendor arrangements, and commercial partnerships - critical information was distributed across multiple manual systems. Sensitive pricing terms and energy industry IP required documents to be highly controlled with clear version histories.
For Company Secretary Fiona Clothier, the deeper concern was process integrity. Approvals were being completed, but the evidence trail was inconsistent. Reporting across the contract portfolio required significant manual effort to compile. And without a single system of record, confirming that obligations had been met - and could be demonstrated to have been met - was harder than it should have been.
What Changed
Within the first months of implementing Pathways, every contract was centralised and linked to a structured workflow. Documentation was no longer filed separately - it lived within the context of the activity it related to, attached directly to the relevant step in each pathway.
Best-practice approval processes were automated, removing reliance on individual judgement about who needed to sign off and when. Every action, approval, and document became part of a continuous audit trail - one that could be produced on demand without manual reconstruction.
Outcome
The efficiency gains were immediate. Contract processing time fell by two-thirds - what had previously taken three weeks now takes one week end to end. Portfolio reporting time was reduced by 50%, with consolidated visibility replacing the manual effort of pulling information from multiple sources.
For Fiona Clothier, the more significant gain was confidence: knowing that every approval was documented, every obligation was traceable, and the organisation could demonstrate due process at any point. More than that, employees felt confident that they could find the exact information when they needed, and identify who else was working across an agreement.
- 600-plus contracts centralised with full version control
- Contract processing time reduced from three weeks to one week
- Portfolio reporting time reduced by 50%
- Documentation contextualised within each workflow activity
- Best-practice approval processes automated
- Full audit trail across all processes and documentation