Ambev Case Study: Legal Workflow Automation for Sponsored Events
When a single delayed contract can hold up an event sponsored by one of the world's largest brewers, legal workflow automation software stops being a convenience and becomes a revenue issue.
Ambev's challenge: hundreds of sponsored events without centralized control
Ambev's regional units create hundreds of sponsored events every year, from festivals to local activations that put the company's brands in front of different audiences in every market. This operation is one of the company's main levers for branding, upselling and brand activation, which makes it strategic rather than purely operational. This is the backdrop for the Ambev case study that gave rise to Legal Connections.
Before the project, corporate event management ran on manual, decentralized processes, with no common standard across the units organizing each event. A single delay in approving a contract or in a supplier's documentation could jeopardize an entire event's date, and no department had a clear view of where the process was getting stuck.
- ✓Suppliers with no standard registration process across units, requiring a manual audit for every new event
- ✓Legal taking days to approve each contract, a bottleneck capable of derailing an entire event if the deadline got tight
- ✓No consolidated view of timelines and status across events in progress
- ✓Finance with no predictability to plan budgets with confidence
- ✓Fragmented communication between legal, finance, marketing and operations, scattered across emails, spreadsheets and disconnected systems
The Agence diagnosis: why the manual process was a business risk
Before designing a single feature, Agence's consulting team mapped Ambev's events process end to end, from a unit's initial request through final approval and financial closeout. That mapping involved direct conversations with legal, finance, marketing and operations, to understand where each department was losing time and where information got lost between systems.
The diagnosis surfaced something that changed the direction of the project: a single delay in a contract's legal approval was not just an administrative annoyance. It could stall an entire event and hit company revenue directly, since the events operation functions as an engine for sales and brand activation. It also became clear that the events department held a strategic role within Ambev, not merely an operational one, which broadened the project's ambition from the first scoping meeting.
That business reading, done before a single line of code, is what pushed the proposal beyond a simple management tool. The ideation stage within Agence's methodology exists exactly for this: to spot opportunities that technology alone would miss, and turn a system request into a full legal workflow automation project.
Legal Connections: the legal workflow automation software uniting legal, finance and operations
Legal Connections was born from that business reading: a sponsored events management system built as a web and mobile platform for large enterprises, capable of running the full lifecycle of events that carry the Ambev brand. It brings together, in one place, centralized legal documents, contract approval automation and financial tracking for each event, replacing the back and forth of emails and spreadsheets with a single, traceable workflow. This logic of taking critical approvals out of manual routing and turning them into an automated workflow is the same principle behind the process automation projects Agence runs across other enterprise operations, adapted here to the legal and financial reality of sponsored events.
Web version features
Consolidated event dashboard
A single view of every event in progress, by unit, status and timeline, replacing parallel spreadsheets.
Contract and legal document management
Centralized supplier documentation and contracts, with the history of every approval accessible in one place.
Financial and controlling dashboards
Cost and result indicators per event, giving the controlling team predictability that used to depend on manual reports.
Workflow approval and supplier management
A structured approval flow across legal, finance and operations, with suppliers registered under a single standard.
What sets the mobile version apart
The mobile version carries the same features outside Ambev's corporate network, straight to the event site, something that only works in a solution built as an app from the start, not as a late adaptation of the web system.
- Event registration directly from the venue, with no need for internal network access
- Real time viewing, editing and deletion of events
- Viewing files and contracts for approval in the field
- Real time notifications on the status of each event
- The same approval logic as the web version, with no duplicate data entry
The Agence methodology, from consulting to continuous improvement
Legal Connections did not start from a closed brief of screens and features. It went through the six stages that structure every custom software development project for large enterprises at Agence, and it is that journey, not a list of requirements, that explains why the platform became Ambev's official events system. It is the same reasoning behind any serious corporate software project, detailed in this guide to the software development life cycle: the earlier the diagnosis happens, the lower the risk of building the wrong feature.
- 1DiagnosisEnd to end mapping of the events process, sizing the features needed by each department involved. This stage revealed, for example, that legal and finance used different criteria to approve the same supplier, which already pointed to the need for a single registration.
- 2IdeationIdentifying strategic opportunities that went beyond pure technology implementation, expanding the project's original scope. This is when the platform stopped being conceived as a control system and started being designed as the official entry point for any new event.
- 3PrototypingA mockup covering data centralization, financial and controlling management, and the contract system, tested before any production code was written. The prototype was validated with users from different departments before turning into a technical spec, which avoided rework in later sprints.
- 4ValidationModular deliveries in sprints, with continuous validation alongside the client at every increment of the platform. Each module, from event registration to the approval flow, was tested in real use by a pilot group before rolling out to the other units.
- 5ImplementationThe platform becomes the official place to request and approve events within Ambev, indispensable to every department involved. From this point on, an event that did not go through Legal Connections had no approved contract and no released budget.
- 6Continuous improvementNew automations and intelligence added to the system after go live, tracking Ambev's real operation. Agence's team kept monitoring platform usage to spot new bottlenecks and propose additional automations, instead of treating delivery as the end of the project.
Results and impact on Ambev's events operation
1,000+
annual events managed directly through the platform
4,000+
sponsored events per year that Ambev's operation sustains
40%+
of the company's new revenue comes from the events operation
$11B+
Ambev's annual revenue, the business context that its events operation helps sustain
The last two figures deserve a clear caveat: they describe the scale of Ambev's business, a company that generates over R$58 billion (roughly $11 billion) in annual revenue and sells more than 1.6 billion liters a year, not a result the software produced on its own. Legal Connections did not generate that revenue. What it did was let that operation stop depending on email and spreadsheets in exactly the business line that already accounted for more than 40% of the company's new revenue, today responsible for over 4,000 sponsored events per year. The platform now directly manages more than 1,000 events annually, which means the legal bottleneck that could stall one event at a time turned into a workflow with predictable, traceable approval.
That gain shows up in concrete details of day to day operations. Suppliers who used to resubmit documentation for every new event now have a single, validated registration, which eliminates repeat audits. The controlling team, which used to close results weeks late because it depended on manual spreadsheets, now tracks the cost of every event in real time. Teams from different units, who used to argue over email about who was responsible for approving what, now follow the same workflow inside the platform, with a history visible to every department.
- ✓Standardized suppliers with no need for recurring manual audits on every new event
- ✓Full traceability across the lifecycle of each event, from initial request through final approval and financial closeout
- ✓Financial predictability for the controlling team to track each event's result in real time, not only at month end
- ✓Less rework between legal, finance, marketing and operations, which today share the same approval history
Why this case study matters for companies in any industry
The lesson behind Legal Connections applies to any company, inside or outside the beverage industry: understand the business process before deciding which technology to build. A legal or financial workflow stuck in recurring approvals is a revenue risk in any operation that depends on it daily, whether that is a sponsored event, a supply contract or a credit release. A retail chain that needs to approve restocking contracts with hundreds of regional suppliers faces the same kind of bottleneck: every day of delay in legal approval is one more day of empty shelves or a promotion that never launches. In manufacturing, the same problem shows up in releasing contracts with carriers and distributors, where a legal delay can stall an entire supply line. This kind of legal and finance process automation is not exclusive to FMCG companies, but the Ambev project stands as a clear FMCG digital transformation case study of what it looks like at scale.
Hybrid platforms, with a web and a mobile version, serve any operation that combines office work with field activity, from retail to manufacturing, whenever teams need to check or approve something outside the corporate network. Building a hybrid platform for enterprise use demands the same architectural care as a web system built for corporate scale, so the management dashboard and the field app share the same approval rules without duplicating data.
To build this kind of custom web and mobile development without inflating headcount, many companies turn to IT outsourcing models, bringing consulting, development and UX together in a multidisciplinary team sized for the project. That is how Agence serves complex enterprise operations from offices in Sao Paulo, Campo Grande, Santiago, Bogota and New York.
If your company also struggles with approvals that depend on scattered messages and lost files, it is worth understanding how this same diagnosis would apply to your process before choosing an off the shelf tool.
Frequently asked questions about Legal Connections and legal workflow automation
What is Legal Connections and what problem does it solve?
It is the web and mobile platform Agence built for Ambev to manage sponsored events carrying the company's brand. It solves the legal contract approval bottleneck and the lack of centralization between legal, finance and operations.
How does contract approval automation work for events?
Contracts and supplier documents enter the platform, follow a structured approval flow across the responsible departments, and keep a visible history and status, instead of moving through email with no centralized control.
What are the benefits of a hybrid web and mobile platform for large enterprises?
The web version concentrates management and controlling work in the office, while the mobile version carries the same functions to the operation site, giving field teams real mobility without duplicating systems.
How long does it take to build a custom event management system?
It varies with the complexity of the process mapped during diagnosis. Projects like Legal Connections move forward in sprints, with modular deliveries validated along the way, instead of a single launch at the end of the project.
How does Agence help other companies automate legal and financial workflows?
Through the same path used in the Ambev case study: diagnosing the real process before any technology decision, followed by prototyping, sprint based validation and continuous improvement after launch.
Move your project forward with Agence
What solved Ambev's legal bottleneck was not a list of ready made features, it was the diagnosis that came before them. The same path applies to unblocking any approval workflow: map the real process, design a system built around it, and gain the traceability and predictability Ambev gained with Legal Connections. Talk to Agence about your process and find out which path makes the most sense for your business.
