HotDocs Blog

Sometimes there is no substitute for a home cooked meal, freshly made to a family recipe... and sometimes you just want to order takeaway. Is it better to do it yourself or just buy off the menu? It’s a question that hungry people ask every day, but it can be applied to many things, including business processes like document generation.

A few years ago, one of my midlife crises was to take an introduction-to-programming class. Previously, I had come from a right-brain, literary background where authenticity and “originality” were given top place. Every project was to be a work of art. So, for my programming class, I wanted to write every program from scratch, ensuring what I perceived to be the most efficient approach, adding my own artistic touch, making it mine.

A corporate services provider had a difficult problem, stemming from its lack of control over its contract generation procedures. When putting together a deal with a new customer, the company’s independent sales reps would often choose an out-of-date form or, in some cases, choose the wrong form altogether.