Creating a Single Source of Truth for Your Legal Entities

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Caitlin: Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, "Creating a Single Source of Truth for Your Legal Entities." My name is Caitlin Alaburda, and I will be your moderator.

Joining us today are two of CSC Entity Management experts, David Jefferis and Andrea Jonaitis. David is a senior director for Global Compliance, and Andrea is an expert sales engineer. So with, that I'll pass things over, and I'd like to welcome David and Andrea.

Andrea: Hi, everyone. Good morning.

David: Good morning and good afternoon to those folks maybe in other parts of the world. So thank you so much, Caitlin. We appreciate being here, and I'll start by saying that I'm excited to present with Andrea, who is an expert sales engineer. Not everyone has a job title that is also simultaneously a flex, as the young people would say, but here she is. And so my job is to kind of stay on or try to be on her level, honestly, for today's presentation. So excited for the content that we have to share with our audience.

And so really, jumping straight in, let's look at today's agenda. So I know that a lot of folks in the audience are familiar with CSC, but there might be some organizations that are not currently doing business with CSC. So we'll spend a moment, a single slide just to talk about CSC as a company.

And then we'll talk about entity management. What do we mean when we say that, right? So we have some folks that will reach out and express an interest in entity management, and really what they're saying is they're interested in some compliance services, maybe corporate secretarial support or registered agent. Other folks are referring more specifically to entity management software technology. Sometimes it's a mix of the two. So really just to kind of get all on the same page, we'll kind of break down some of these definitions and terms and then move forward.

And really, if you look at number three on the agenda, that's sort of the central theme here is the ability to create a source of truth for your legal entities. And so that's going to be really a kind of a main focus on how organizations can do that and how CSC can bring solutions to the market that help you with that quite a bit.

So again, we'll kind of in the back half of the webinar talk about our entity solutions in terms of services and software. And then the part that I always get excited about is the live demonstration of our Entity Management technology.

And then you'll see that we're going to do our best to have time for Q&A at the end. But certainly, there is a Q&A widget, as was mentioned. So during the presentation, please do not be shy. Fire away with questions. And we're pretty adept at co-presenting and answering questions as we go. So please keep those questions coming during the course of today's webinar.

So let's talk a moment about CSC as a company. So a couple of quick facts about CSC. We are globally headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware. We have a physical presence on five continents. We are a privately held organization. The roots of our company go all the way back to 1899. So just last year we were celebrating our 125th anniversary, which is a pretty remarkable thing.

Over 90% of the Fortune 500 utilize CSC for at least one of our services. As it specifically relates to the entity management software platform that we'll explore today in some detail, which we call CSC Entity Management, very proud to say that over 20% of the Fortune 500 are utilizing CSC Entity Management as their management software platform.

So I mentioned that we're over 125 years old. But something happened almost two and a half years ago that is really monumentous, which is the acquisition of the Intertrust Group. And so really that dynamically changed the breadth and the scope of services that we were able to bring to the market and our international presence and expertise. And so we'll talk really about both domestic and global compliance services. But really that's an acquisition that really doubled the size of our organization and really dramatically changed how we're able to come to market with global entity solutions for our clients, which we'll talk about.

So that's just a bit about CSC as an organization. So here's where I get to bring my expert colleague into the conversation. So Andrea is going to talk a little bit about some of these definitions of entity management. We'll also talk about some of the challenges that folks might have in this regard. So Andrea, I'll turn things over to you.

Andrea: I appreciate that, David, for the introduction and also for the fathead that you've given me today. So thank you. Thank you so much for that.

We want to kick off briefly just to make sure we're all on the same page in terms of the terms and vocabulary that we're using today. To some folks, when we say "entity management," they might mean registered agent or annual report responsibilities.

When we as CSC refer to entity management, we are referring to kind of a broader, multi-department discipline that supports all activities, even beyond just basic registered agent or annual reports, so that you can maintain your portfolio of entities all around the globe. So it can include different components, such as managing and keeping your company in compliance with international, federal, state, local requirements, the maintenance of data, documents, compliance, communication, collaboration, and reporting for all of your company's entities. It's kind of providing internal and external parties with secure access to entity records and visibility and transparency. It includes the maintaining of entities through the compliance life cycle, so all the steps that are required from formation of entity all the way through change management, dissolution, winding down, and so forth.

So entity management is a practice that commonly involves engaging service providers for entity compliance services, things like transaction filings, representation, or corporate secretarial services, and so forth, as well as the technology that supports those services and processes that you need to take care of here.

So let's get into some of the challenges of entity management. The maintenance of a multinational portfolio of entities can be particularly challenging for a variety of reasons. As your business expands or operates in multiple jurisdictions, managing entity compliance really becomes increasingly complex. There are so many different regulatory requirements, and they can vary greatly depending on the jurisdiction, the entity type, and a variety of other factors. This can really make it difficult to understand what is required to be completed and when action has to be taken in order to remain in good standing at the local, state, federal, global levels and to be eligible and available to do business in those areas.

The need for accurate entity-related information is critical. And often the maintenance of that data or the interest in having access to that information can spread across a variety of departments, a variety of stakeholders, even different service providers if you have multiple providers that are assisting you with the maintenance of your portfolio.

Increased requirements for know your customer due diligence or KYC requirements, as well as anti-money laundering or AML due diligence requests, that places an increased focus on security and privacy and availability, plus an increase in bad actors. So we're kind of at an all-time high in the importance of data privacy and security mechanisms.

And lastly, now more than ever, corporate legal departments are being asked to do a whole lot more with a whole lot less. Resources are being spread very thinly. Time, people, availability just really getting stretched to the max and trying to save those dollars where possible. So, again, all things that make entity management truly challenging.

So to get into entity management software and kind of what is entity management software, it's really a specialized software that is designed to make those components of your entity management processes more streamlined and centralized. An entity management tool is going to serve as your centralized source of truth for managing entity data, tracking ownership records, and generating graphic or text-based org charts, being able to track and maintain appointment information, officers or directors, members, managers. I kind of use officers directors loosely because it can really mean any type of appointment. It could be partners, powers of attorney, signing authorities, your own custom roles and titles. But being able to have visibility into those types of appointments that you might need.

Of course, the maintenance of documents, being able to manage electronic minute books or other documents that are important to you. Generating reports would be included in an entity management solution. Most critically, perhaps, receiving alerts and reminders for your event deadlines.

So a lot of things that an entity management software can really streamline or simplify for you. David is going to give us some of the benefits of why you might choose to use an entity management software.

David: Yeah, absolutely. Appreciate that, Andrea. So again, understanding the challenges, really this is specialized software that helps you overcome some of the obstacles that are just naturally there without, again, a software platform that can really bring things together. And so centralization is something that we hear over and over when we talk to clients about one of the key benefits of implementing this type of software.

I had a conversation about a month or so ago with a client that recently came on board with our software platform, and I was speaking with them about, "Well, what was life like prior? What were you doing? How were you managing your entities?" And they talked about using things like spreadsheets and trying to use SharePoint. And they shared that, "Effectively, User A and User B had information that wasn't lined up, and it just sort of killed our efficiency," I think was the exact quote. And they just couldn't move forward in an effective manner with information that was really siloed.

So certainly centralization is one of the core key benefits of entity management software. But really beyond that, it's not just having a platform that's a repository of information, although that certainly is critical. But advanced, more modern solutions really create workflows around things like understanding when annual filings are coming due, being able to press a button and generate structure charts, press a button and generate documents like consents and resolutions. And so, again, as we get deeper into the presentation, we'll have a chance to kind of show you some of our tools.

But again, it's more than just a repository of information. It's, again, purpose-built to help you kind of do the tasks that you need to do day-to-day to manage the ongoing governance. And Andrea talked about sort of that life cycle management, right from formation to dissolution and everything in between. Again, there are features within these software platforms that make life a lot easier to kind of manage those types of events.

So that's a little bit about why organizations implement entity management software for efficiencies and making sure that they don't have silos of information that create challenges for the organization. So let's talk about some of the challenges of using more than one entity compliance provider.

And so you might have, in a hypothetical, maybe an organization that's using Provider A for registered agent representation for the U.S. portfolio. Maybe they've purchased kind of an off-the-shelf technology solution, a standalone technology solution for entity management capabilities. Maybe this is a global organization, and internationally they're using yet another provider, sort of Provider C. Maybe it's a mix of in-country law firms. Maybe they don't even have a single provider necessarily for the global entities. And so some of the things that you're seeing here on the slide talk to some of the challenges that can sort of come up very, very easily.

So depending on the entity involved, maybe there's different points of contact across different organizations that you need to reach out to for support. Number two really resonates with me as someone that works in technology, which is, again, I've got one system for my U.S. entities. I've got a different system for global entities. They're not talking to one another. And there's just sort of, again, kind of a disconnect that could naturally occur. And sometimes this is just sort of evolution. Maybe you come into an organization where it was prior stakeholders that made decisions about who to partner with domestically versus globally, or what software platforms they're using. And there various vendors, and again they're disconnected and not speaking with one another.

Another challenge honestly is cost. And again, I can say that at CSC, when organizations use us for multiple services, like registered agent, annual reports, entity management software as just a couple of examples, maybe using us globally, we're able to provide pricing that is more favorable for clients that bundle capabilities together. So if you're kind of spreading out your spend across multiple compliance vendors for entity management, you might not have the leverage that you might otherwise have if you were to consolidate with a single provider and bring things together in a more cohesive fashion.

So those are some of the challenges of just trying to manage the fact that you've got different support providers across different elements of your entity portfolio.

Now this is, again, the heart of today's webinar, which is creating a source of truth for your legal entity. So first and foremost, before we talk about how you do it, what do we really mean when we say that?

So, for me, this first bullet kind of brings it into focus, which is having a central, undisputed place where you can go and you can rely on the accuracy, the thoroughness, the completeness, the current nature of the information in that platform. So if I need to press a button and get a structure chart, if I need to press a button and get a list of active directors and officers, if I need to understand when do I have annual reports and equivalent compliance obligations coming due around the world, do I have a single place where I can go to have visibility to that information? And if the answer is yes, good on you because you find yourself in a situation where you're pretty far along in establishing that source of truth. Whereas again, if you're not using software, information is kind of spread out, this is something that while it might seem elusive for some organizations, we feel that it's very, very achievable.

Again, centralization becoming a key to drive efficiency. And then that last bullet point I think is important as well. It's, again, often the legal department that is sort of the main sort of user of these types of software platforms. They're sort of the key stakeholder in maintaining the information. That said, there's often a need to be able to share that information across other parts of the organization, whether that's tax, treasury, finance, etc. And so, critically, you want to be able to have a place that you trust of all this information being current and accurate. But you want to be able to, in a very thoughtful, granular manner, bring people into that system so they can see information that they can use, again, with tight controls over that.

And then also, the last bullet point talks about the ability to potentially share that information with other systems. And that's something that we'll start to explore a little bit further on in the demo. But this makes me think of a conversation that I had earlier this year with a Fortune 500 organization, where I was talking with someone in the legal department managing a global portfolio of entities. And she shared a story of a colleague in kind of another department who was responsible for creating contracts for entities. And at the end of the day, their contract system had a different list of entities than their entity system had, and the person drafting that legal contract thought they picked the right entity, but a lot of the entities had similar names. Turns out they're not sort of all coming from the same source of truth for that legal entity name, and they got it wrong. And there was a lot of work to kind of unravel the problems that were created by consequences of entering into a contract with the wrong legal entity name.

So we were talking about a source of truth, that one-stop shop that you can go to that you can rely on for the data, the documents, the charts, that other people can collaborate in, securely permission, maybe share information with other systems. And these are all things that our CSC Entity Management platform is set up to do so beautifully.

And so the first thing that we'll talk about is data getting into the system. And so this is a little bit of a segue into the next slide. But we are not just a standalone technology provider, right? We are certainly known for our services. And so at the end of the day, when you're using CSC for a compliance service, like let's say registered agent here in the U.S. or maybe providing a corporate secretarial offering for international companies, there is clean, vetted data that flows into the system automatically. So we do audits either with secretaries of state for U.S. companies or international registries in the case of non-U.S. entities, and we're bringing clean data into the application as a foundational starting point.

Then as you partner with CSC for filings, like having us do formations and annual reports and dissolutions, etc., director changes maybe in the case of international entities, we are updating that data in the platform in real time and lodging the supporting evidence that comes back from either a secretary of state or an international business registry into the system. So not only do we have clean data from the start, we are constantly, again, pulling information into the system based on work that we're doing on your behalf.

There are also really effective tools, that Andrea and I will talk about, to make it easy for you to get more data into the system. So effectively, I've got this awesome, vetted foundation of information, but now I want to build on top of it. I want to get director and officers in there. I want to be able to add ownership records and plug in custom fields and additional details. And so there are, again, sort of a wealth of tools that we're expanding upon to make it very efficient to get more information into the platform.

We talked about this desire for these platforms or the need really, if these are these systems are going to be a source of truth, to be able to securely collaborate, right? I want to permission someone in from tax or finance or HR, but, again, I don't want them to see everything or have edit rights across the board. So we have gone to great lengths to make sure that there are all sorts of very granular options for what people can do in the system. So maybe you've got a colleague where they can see just certain entities that are relevant for them. Maybe they've got view rights to certain basic data, like entity vitals and directors, officers, but maybe that same person doesn't need to see like capital or maybe sensitive documents that you're managing in the system. So there's a granular control where you're in the driver's seat in terms of what people can see and do.

And then also, integrations with key enterprise, third-party systems. So we have a couple of off-the-shelf integrations. So for organizations that use Docusign for electronic signatures, we have a pre-built integration, where you can push documents out for signature through our software.

I think there was a question. Andrea might have already answered it. But I saw a question where someone was asking about what can it do beyond just sort of storing documents or acting as a document repository. So we'll talk and show how our platform can help you actually create documents, how you can push them out for signature.

And then also, we have a pre-built integration with Workday. So for organizations that might be using Workday as their human capital management HR system, we have a pre-built integration where effectively you can securely sync your entity management application with CSC with Workday. And that way, if there are changes where maybe someone has a status change, as in they're retiring or leaving the organization, or a name change or a title change, you can get real-time alerts via email and actually in the application that there could be some changes that impact your officer and director information. It's often the HR system that knows maybe before others know that there's a change to an individual. So there's really nice transparency there.

We also have a broad framework for creating custom integrations, which we'll get into in a bit more detail. But again, securely bringing people in and then also the ability to securely connect to other key platforms and share information back and forth.

So the last thing, actually I think I've got two more things I'll talk about before I bring Andrea back into the conversation. And so I was alluding to this, and this slide is really just sort of the tip of the proverbial iceberg here. So these are some of the main compliance services that CSC brings to the market.

So we've been a registered agent for over a century, acting as a handler of service of process and representing U.S. subsidiaries. Probably more than half, well over half of the clients that come on board with CSC are saying, "Not only do I want you to act as my registered agent, but please prepare and file annual reports on my behalf as well, those secretary of state annual obligations." So that is a core service that we offer. Ongoing transactional work, formations, dissolutions , name changes, good standing certificates, kind of everything in the life cycle we're able to assist with those types of filings, again with that information and documents flowing into our platform.

And then we have a service that we call Global Subsidiary Management. I mentioned the Intertrust acquisition that occurred almost two and a half years ago, where we have a presence on over five continents. We provide services in over 140 jurisdictions. And so this is a service where effectively we take on a corporate secretarial role, where we're handling the annual compliance obligations, drafting documents, filing financial statements. It's a very in-depth, sort of ongoing compliance service that we offer for international entities. And then, certainly, we have services for special purpose vehicles. We do fund administration services.

I am not even getting into all of the capabilities. But these are some of the core sort of entity-related services that we bring to the market, understanding that the information related to those services is flowing automatically into our software technology.

Now I would say from the jump, when I take a look at this slide, that CSC Entity management is more than just a collection of features. It is a very purpose-built application to help clients with the workflow of managing entities through their life cycle. Having said that, to kind of understand what is this thing and what can it do, I think it is helpful to sort of take a look at some of the sort of broken down capabilities of the solution as well.

So again, certainly capabilities for generating, signing, storing documents, searching for documents, functionality for tracking ownership, so Entity A owns Entity B, pressing a button and seeing that visually as a structure chart, tracking key appointments like directors and officers, understanding when compliance obligations are coming due. There is a host of capabilities within the technology. A very robust reporting module so that critically information isn't getting sort of just trapped or stuck in the system. You can run reports off the shelf. You can build your own reports where you can query the information and pull it out in a variety of formats. And sort of lenses of looking at information is certainly a critical capability as well.

So now that we hopefully have a high-level understanding of the software technology, which we'll get a chance to look at in the demo in just a bit, Andrea is going to come back and talk a little bit about how CSC is different, sort of at a high-level view and then how our Entity Management software is different as well.

Andrea: Absolutely. Thanks, David. I'm so grateful for all of the questions that are coming into the Q&A widget. We are feverishly addressing them and also looking to verbally address them with you. So please do keep them coming.

Getting into what makes CSC different, as an organization, we're often asked what makes CSC different from other providers that are out there in the market, and there are quite a few aspects that set CSC aside in the industry, both from a services perspective as well as a technology perspective. One of the most fundamental differences between CSC and most providers out there is the way that we integrate our service and our technology together with a global footprint.

CSC is unique in that we are not just a service company and not just a technology company, but really a combination of both of those. And we combine our industry-leading technologies with our award-winning services to provide a complete end-to-end solution for our customers. Data and documents will flow automatically into the CSC Entity Management platform when CSC handles any filings or corporate secretarial services on your behalf anywhere around the world.

We do business in over 140 jurisdictions and are positioned to support the needs of any multinational organization across five continents and countless markets and business areas. We have regional hubs for our services in North America, EMEA, and APAC regions. We're really proud to provide follow-the-sun service and have been a long-standing player in this space. Since 1899, CSC has been really the team of experts at the forefront of helping to guide our clients through the ever-changing compliance and regulatory landscape if you will.

That gets us into what makes CSC Entity Management different. So this important topic really is crucial. You'll find that entity management systems, from a features perspective, they tend to have a lot of the same features. But there are certain nuances that really set aside entity management software or systems from one another. So your entity management system is crucial for keeping your teams organized, connecting you in a secure and collaborative environment. I mentioned that we use our industry-leading technology and combine that with our experienced customer support and services.

Entity Management or CSC Entity Management is fully integrated with our compliance and filing services around the world. So we've said it quite a few times now. Data and documents will flow automatically into the platform, where we provide those corporate secretarial services. Our customers have the extreme benefit of just sitting back and enjoying the way we automate the maintenance of the database. You can see data and documents flowing in real time. You have a real-time update and understanding of the status of your filings and the services that we're providing for you.

But CSC Entity Management is also jam-packed with other powerful and robust capabilities that your teams can proactively leverage on your own. You can design or upload an unlimited number of documents in the system. You can track entity vitals. You can capture officer, director, member, manager appointment details. You can automate the design of your org charts, and you can do so with very stringent and specific security mechanisms.

So we take security and availability to the highest levels, and this really kind of distinguishes CSC in the marketplace. So we are incredibly critical in our approach to limiting who's providing services to your portfolio as well as the technical mechanisms in place to protect you, your data, your documents, and your privacy. As an organization, both our team and our technologies are SOC 2 Type II certified. We host all data and documents on CSC-dedicated servers that are ISO 27001 certified. We have the most stringent security mechanisms, encryptions, protections, and firewalls and so forth. We have a team of specialists that are dedicated just to security and protection. And we're really proud to be kind of the industry leader in terms of those security mechanisms that are in place for our customers. We undergo regular ethical hacking and penetration tests to make sure that our technologies meet and exceed the security requirements of even the toughest clients.

From a platform perspective, our technology is also incredibly intuitive and configurable. So while it does come with some standard fields by design, clients can create an unlimited number of custom data fields across multiple data areas in the platform, whether it's entity vitals, appointment information. If you want to track and manage capital and ownership fields or create more fields beyond what we have in the standard design, we give you that flexibility to really tailor or individualize the database based on your needs. You can even design unique entity page layouts to configure exactly which data fields you need to have that you want to track and support, down to the specific entity level.

And the platform is also connected to our backend Knowledge Base. So it's going to automate the creation of U.S. and global compliance dates and deadlines. I saw a question come in from Courtney there as to whether we can assist with the automation of those events. We absolutely can within this technology. So in the platform, when paired with our services, the compliance calendar will automatically be updated with event statuses. So not only are you going to see U.S. secretary of state deadlines or be able to see the requirements that are due to the global business registries around the world, we will automate the statuses and the details so that you and your team have 24/7 access and transparency into the deadlines and completion and again that visibility that you're looking for from a compliance maintenance perspective.

Of course, you also can opt in to alerts and reminders for any of these events or obligations from our calendars. And you can even track and create custom deadlines so that you can track or report on other events and obligations that are important to your business.

And while we do automate the upkeep of the technology with our service, we also take a lot of pride in providing you with an entity management solution that is incredibly intuitive and user friendly and easy to keep accurate and up to date on your own. We recognize no one wants to use a system that is difficult to maintain or doesn't provide you with the features that you want. So we are committed to the enhancement of our system, and we do have a multi-year development roadmap. So we release new features and tools on a regular cadence. We continue to expand the system with new and relevant and useful functionalities, and we provide all of those product enhancements to our customers automatically at no cost and without the need to go through any complicated upgrade processes.

Not only does the flat rate annual fee include all enhancements, but it also includes unlimited users. I saw a question come in through the Q&A widget about seat licenses or a limit to the number of users that you can have. It is absolutely unlimited. It doesn't matter the role-based permissions that you need to give access to. We don't charge per user costs or seat license fees, regardless of how many people would benefit from utilizing the tool. Whether those people are internal to your team or outside of your organization, if that makes sense for you, you can permission any unlimited number of folks into CSC Entity Management in any capacity, whether it's read only, edit capabilities, no visibility or access to certain entities or documents or records. You can even mix and match the configuration of those permissions so that you have the right level of visibility and access. We also include all system features and provide clients with free and unlimited training throughout the duration of your usage of our platform as well.

So I mentioned a moment ago that we include all of the product enhancements, and here's a snapshot of some of the enhancements that we've made over the last five years. And I won't get into too much detail because there's a lot to dig into on this slide. But you'll notice that we are committed to enhancing all aspects of the Entity Management technology across all functional areas, whether it's enhancing the org chart functions, whether we're streamlining your processes by integrating with Docusign or Workday, whether we're giving you the tools that you need for building or designing documents or generating those inside of the application. We are constantly taking your feedback and your suggestions. We are considering those, and we do release new features, again, designed to help make your processes better, faster, easier, more streamlined when you're utilizing CSC's Entity Management system.

So we're going to dive into a live demo of the technology in just a minute. But before we do that, we wanted to briefly focus in on just a couple of our most recent product enhancements to the Entity Management system.

So the first one I wanted to share with you is the Bulk Import module. We did previously offer the ability for you to mass update individual data fields one at a time inside of CSC Entity Management platform. But we recognized that some of our customers often wanted to make a mass update to more than one field across multiple entities, or perhaps have the ability to import entities or data into the system. I mentioned quite a few times we update and automate data as part of our services. But the Bulk Import module will give you the ability, as David kind of hinted at, to be able to take your additional data elements or information, or you may even have some entities that you're managing in your portfolio that might be outside of CSC services and that aren't automated by our service processes.

So the Bulk Import module will allow you to quickly and easily add those non-CSC entities to the platform in bulk, which replaces some previous processes that were a bit more manual and again individualized for you to manually update. You also can update entity summary data across multiple fields and multiple entities at a much larger scale than before with the Bulk Import tool. This includes updating both standard fields that come normally in the Entity Management system as well as updating any custom fields that you've created in your portfolio.

We also offer a lot of flexibility when you're making these bulk updates. So you can either prepare an Excel file that you upload the data into the application, or you can easily add information directly into the Bulk Import grid through a guided workflow within that Bulk Update module.

We're also really excited to release two additional phases to the Bulk Import module later this year. So the next phase will include the ability to make updates to officer and director appointment data. And Phase 3, coming later in the year, is going to address bulk document imports. You may already be familiar with our document management system and how easy it is to just drag and drop multiple documents into the filing cabinet there. But again, the Bulk Import module, as it relates to documents, is going to give you some alternative options for greater flexibility, even beyond drag and drop, to be able to upload multiple documents to your entities in the portfolio here.

So next, David is going to highlight our most recent enhancement, which is related to API integrations.

David: It's so much fun answering questions, I just want to keep going into that Q&A widget. So these questions are great.

So one thing I actually do want to share because I appreciate that the audience can't see each other's questions, Andrea, you were talking a bit about, and I think I might have as well, about how we automate annual compliance obligations through our technology. The question came through, "Can we build our own compliance events?" And the answer is absolutely. So if you have events outside of the annual obligations that we're automating, authorized users can absolutely build events and get alerts about them as well.

So with that, I'm going to talk a little bit about integrations. And so if you're someone in the audience and you're not super technical, fear not. Instead of tuning out, this is where you want to tune in. This is where things get really powerful, and you don't have to be an IT engineer to kind of, I think, understand how powerful this can be.

So as a little bit of background, an application programming interface, or an API, it's just a fancy word for a technology that lets two distinct applications kind of talk to one another or share information back and forth. When an organization actually establishes a connection between two platforms, it's what's known as an integration. And so, I think as I mentioned before, we have some off-the-shelf integrations with our platform, with Docusign for eSignature, with Workday for HR alerts around personnel changes. But our clients can also leverage our API to create what we call custom integrations. So basically, name the system, and there is a framework that can be leveraged to basically connect that system to CSC Entity Management for the sharing of information.

So that's just sort of a quick little conceptual backdrop about what this is. Now in terms of what have we done around our capabilities, so we've had a long-standing capability, for over a decade at this point, where organizations could say, "Hey, I've got data in your platform, or maybe I've got documents in your platform, being CSC Entity Management, and I want to feed that into other internal or third-party systems." And we've had a framework to support that for years.

What's new for us, which we're very excited about, is as of the beginning of last month, we now have a capability where you can push information from other systems into CSC Entity Management. So we have a lot of clients for many years that beyond just sort of the core entity information that we're tracking, they're creating custom fields, which they can do in an unlimited fashion. And maybe they're plugging in a Yardi code or an SAP code and some accounting information, tax information from another system, and they're maintaining the data in the platform. And there's value and power in doing that. I don't want to downplay it.

But now we're saying, well, don't manually key in that SAP code from your SAP system or that Yardi code from your Yardi system. Why not have that data fed in dynamically from that other system in a secure fashion? That way you're not doing duplicative data entry, where things can get out of alignment or miskeyed. While CSC Entity Management can be your source of truth for your legal entity information, you have other sources of truth, right? You've got a source of truth hopefully for tax and accounting and finance. And so, again, we now have the ability for those types of systems to push data into CSC Entity Management. So the possibilities are really open-ended in a very good way in terms of how you can leverage that capability.

So kind of going back to that anecdote I shared before, where I spoke with someone that their contracts team had a different set of entities in their contract system, they don't need to do that. And this is a part of the conversation that we had, where effectively they could use our Entity Management technology to effectively feed the legal entity names that they're maintaining in our system, which is their source of truth, into their contract management system. And so that way, when someone is pulling up a contract, they're pulling from the appropriate actual legal entity names and not just sort of maintaining a duplicative list.

And so this slide is meant to show a little bit of a visual depiction of what this could do for you. So we're saying you have systems like accounting and finance that could push data into Entity Management. CSC Entity Management, in turn, could push information into tax and contract solutions. But really, these could be sort of in any direction. At the end of the day, you can push data in, you can pull data out, and sort of, again, solidify your entity system as the source of truth, sharing that information securely with other platforms bringing data into CSC Entity Management from other systems.