US-based legal company increases case load with Service Cloud
See how a client-portal enabled clients to upload and sign legal documents through a DocuSign-Salesforce integration.
Processes
Legal aspects of working with a European service provider. How to protect your and your customers’ interest
With the pandemic hitting the world, Digital Transformations have become an inevitable part of businesses. Even the smallest vendor will have a digital presence and are exposed to a large amount of audience. Hence, a lot of businesses are now jumping on the trend-wagon of going digital or upgrading their processes to speed up their delivery. Along with speeding up their delivery, the businesses are doing a lot of analysis to penetrate new markets. Well, if you are one of them, the next question that will hit your mind would be - after acquiring a customer, how should I ensure me and my customer benefit from it? Or, if you are a customer, working with a European service provider, how should I ensure I cover all bases when it comes to legal contracts?
With the technology boom, Europe has now become an IT hub with promising services. We are based out of Central Europe, and we do all kinds of Salesforce implementations, including integrations and custom development. We have customers across the globe, we provide skilled labour with language compatibility and great time zone coverage. Innovation is one of our core principles when it comes to the digital transformation of our customers. And, we provide our services at a competitive price.
What sets us apart from other European IT companies is the way we protect our and our customers’ interests. Check out how we carefully design our legal contracts, keeping the European laws and regulations in mind to leverage the laws in a way that benefits our customers and us both.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe is applicable to an organisation that collects data from EU residents, an organisation that processes data, or the data subject in Europe. Basically, you cannot process any data without informed consent for one or more purposes. Being a service provider in Europe, the service providers will definitely process the data, hence a written contract must be signed by your customer. Signing a written consent to process the data (including personal data), gives the rights to the service provider to process the data without any legal issues, hence protecting the customer as well.
Data Protection Agreement is added as an additional paper to our standard contracts, this ensures data integrity. Basically, the service provider cannot share or process customers’ data with any other organisation, unless there’s written consent. The contract is applicable to all employees or partners associated with the service provider. It is applicable in the cases of international data transfers as well. And, data being the heart of any CRM solution, the customer will definitely want you to process their data and store it in CRM in a way where they can leverage it to increase their business. It is a good practice to understand the type of data processing you have to perform. Hence, you must ensure that the Data Protection agreement is definitely added to your standard contract.
Right Not to Employ Clause is added as part of our standard contracts, this ensures that the customers cannot hire service provider’s employees during or after the contractual term, in any form. The clause is designed to protect and retain the employees, and maintain the confidentiality of the employees of service providers. This also ensures that the customers are not manipulated, in any form, by the employees of service providers.
Fees and Penalties for Contract Breaches are added as part of the standard contracts, this ensures that both service providers and customers are on the same page for the entire project. The contract breach can happen in numerous ways from the service provider’s end - lack of resources, delay in the project, scope creep, or any similar reasons. Or, the contract breach can happen in multiple ways from customers’ end - lack of participation, delay in response, increasing the scope, changing requirements, or similar reasons. Adding fees and penalties to the standard contract can ensure the project stays on track and protect the interest of both customer and service provider.
Ability to execute on customers’ rights since we are based in Europe, and we have our customers’ data, they have the right to object, withdraw, access, transfer the data or data processing. In case anything goes south, the customer can request to exercise the rights regarding the processing of their personal data. These rights are designed to protect customers’ interests. There are penalties applicable to the service provider in case of any data breaches. There are certain out-of-court procedures that can help the customers resolve any disputes. If you cannot resolve it out-of-court, there are five European legal bodies, working to protect your data. Since we know our legalities, our contracts fit like a glove to the European laws and regulations.
To sum it up, the European laws are designed in a way to protect both the customers and the service providers. Ensure you have everything in written consent, taking into account the European laws and regulations and the country-specific laws where your customer is based. The best way is to research standard templates and laws, and have a legal consultant or team vet the contracts before signing them mutually.
We, You: Digital, being a well-recognized and licensed organisation, ensures to leverage the European laws and regulations to benefit our customers and us. Our main aim is to collaboratively deliver the most innovative solutions with certified consultants. The best way to protect interests and cover the bases is to have written contracts signed mutually. With our experience, we know the terms and conditions that can be favourable to both of us. We have Legal Experts who have worked with legal teams across the globe. Hence, our contracts are designed to protect our customers’ interests without any legal litigations.
Share article
Check other articles
Tips to Scale Your Company’s Software Development Team
Team scaling is an essential process within every business. However, many companies struggle with picking strategies to scale their teams. This post deep dives into the
Start your project with MVP – the best way for a successful software project
Developing a software product can be risky, time consuming and very costly.