2) The ‘Retail Spin’ on Doc Gen
Document Generation Podcast Series
Episode 2 of 4: The ‘Retail Spin’ on Document Generation
Read the Article Version of the Podcast
In this second chapter of the Document Generation series, host Preston Hurd shares real-world stories from major retailers to illustrate each of the four categories of Doc Gen for Salesforce. A complete corresponding Buyers Guide to Document Generation for Salesforce (here) is also available on our website.
The episode begins with Document Generation Automation, where Nike automates B2B sales proposals and Best Buy streamlines partner onboarding through Salesforce-driven workflows. Next comes Electronic Signature and Digital Agreements, featuring ASOS and Sephora, who use eSignature tools to manage influencer contracts and employee onboarding. The third category, Forms and Workflow Automation, highlights Patagonia’s automation of nonprofit grant applications and Zara’s use of forms to manage customer feedback and returns. Finally, in Enterprise Content Management, Target centralizes vendor contracts for compliance, while Nordstrom manages marketing assets and cross-team content collaboration.
So grab a cup of coffee and get ready for some rich strategies brewed for retail—but ready to be served up across any industry.
Let's get started with the first category, Document Generation Automation. Take it from here...
Let’s dive right in. Within Doc Gen, we have Document Generation Automation — the category most closely aligned with Document Generation itself. To bring this to life, let’s look at two examples: one from a brand and one from a retailer.
Starting with a brand like Nike — they sell their shoes through countless retailers around the world. Nike’s B2B sales team manages thousands of wholesale accounts globally, and their sales reps often need to create custom product order forms or seasonal pricing proposals for each regional distributor. Instead of manually building those documents, Document Generation integrated within Salesforce now allows them, with the click of a button, to automatically generate tailored, personalized sales proposals and order confirmations — each populated with the latest pricing, product SKUs, account terms, and more.
Now, shifting to the retailer side, take Best Buy. On their e-commerce marketplace (the .com side, not brick-and-mortar), they work with hundreds of third-party electronics sellers. Account managers used to manually draft partner agreements, onboarding guides, and monthly performance summaries for each seller. With Document Generation, those same documents can now be automatically created from Salesforce data — generating customized onboarding packets that include sales reports, renewal contracts, and dynamically populated seller-specific product SKUs, revenue data, and compliance terms.
That’s the power of Document Generation Automation in action — taking what used to be repetitive, manual document creation and transforming it into a seamless, data-driven workflow.
All right, the next category two, eSignature
ASOS is a fast-rising fashion brand that’s made a big impact with younger audiences. They frequently collaborate with other fashion labels and influencers, and I actually had a firsthand experience with one of their pop-up stores back when I worked at Yahoo. It was a really creative setup — a temporary ASOS space inside Nordstrom at ‘The Grove’ in Los Angeles, which is a great outdoor mall if you ever visit. If you're ever in LA, I highly recommend you go there. They had DJs, live music, and custom embroidery stations, all designed to connect with the Gen Z crowd.
Similar to that co-marketing collaboration between ASOS and Nordstrom as an example, ASOS often needs to manage a wide range of digital agreements — influencer contracts, licensing deals, NDAs, and more. They handle all of this through eSignature tools, which automate the entire process of sending, signing, and storing these agreements. Partners around the world can quickly review and sign documents right from their mobile devices, while Marketing and Legal teams track signature status in real time. This ensures campaigns launch on schedule, without the back-and-forth of chasing down paperwork across time zones.
Another great example is Sephora, a leading beauty retailer. When Sephora opens new stores across different regions, their HR teams need to quickly hire dozens of associates. To streamline this process, they use digital offer letters and automated onboarding workflows powered by eSignature technology. Candidates can review and sign their documents directly on their phones, and HR can track completion instantly. This replaces the old paper-based process of printing, scanning, and emailing PDFs — helping Sephora staff new stores faster, whether it’s for permanent roles or seasonal hiring.
Third category, Forms and Workflow Automation.
Patagonia is a great example of a brand using form automation to streamline its nonprofit partnerships. The company receives a large number of grant applications from environmental organizations and manages the entire process through an automated workflow. They built an online grant application form that feeds data directly into Salesforce, where each submission is automatically tagged, routed for review, and structured for reporting — all without any manual data entry. The system notifies reviewers when new applications are ready and triggers automated status updates or follow-up workflows to applicants. This approach not only saves time but also improves the transparency and overall experience for grant applicants.
Another strong example of Forms and Workflow Automation comes from Zara, the global fast-fashion retailer. Zara uses form automation to handle customer feedback and issue resolution more efficiently, particularly within their eCommerce division. When a customer submits a return request or reports a product issue — whether it’s the wrong size or a defect — the system automatically creates a Salesforce case and routes it to the correct team for action. Follow-up emails and satisfaction surveys are triggered automatically, cutting down on response times and eliminating repetitive feedback loops. The result is a smoother post-purchase experience and happier customers who feel heard and supported throughout the process.
Fourth category, Enterprise Content Management.
Target, one of the largest mass-market retailers, provides a great example of how Enterprise Content Management (ECM) transforms the way organizations handle vendor documentation. In the past, becoming a vendor for Target required a flood of paperwork and manual processes. Now, all vendor contracts are stored in a centralized ECM platform. This system allows documents to be securely stored, easily searched by keywords or expiration dates, and accessed only by authorized personnel—such as members of the Legal team overseeing specific divisions. It ensures compliance, maintains security, and simplifies renewals and audits by keeping all agreements organized and accessible in one place.
Beyond vendor contracts, ECM systems also manage a wide range of digital assets—such as product images, marketing materials, and usage rights. Nordstrom, for example, uses ECM to support its advertising and eCommerce operations across apparel and beauty categories. With ECM, Nordstrom’s in-store and online teams can quickly access the latest approved content, while product teams easily find seasonal lookbook assets. Marketing teams can pull licensed imagery with confidence, and role-based access controls ensure that sensitive vendor contracts or media rights are only available to the right people. The result is a smooth, efficient creative process that connects departments and accelerates campaign delivery.
Across all of the four categories we’ve discussed - from Document Generation Automation to eSignature, Forms & Workflow Automation, and Enterprise Content Management- these real-world retailer and brand examples illustrate how Doc Gen technologies are used every day to streamline operations, improve compliance, and empower teams to work smarter.
Thanks Preston for putting that “Retail Spin” on Doc Gen. It really helps our listeners to better understand the software. And up next we've got a quick deep-dive on the sub-category Document Generation Automation, really breaking down the tech. So be sure to check that out next.
And thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Filtered Brew podcast. We hope you enjoyed the Retail stories and took away some insights that you can apply to your own digital strategy and within your own industry. Be sure to visit TheFilteredBrew.com - it's the place to go for the latest software tech insights and where you can find more episodes and additional resources.
If you liked what you heard, don't forget to follow, rate and share the show. It really helps us grow and reach more listeners like you. This has been the Filtered Brew Podcast where conversations are crafted, refined and brewed to perfection. Catch you in the next Deep-Dive episode and keep those ideas percolating.
Podcast Transcript Chapters
Navigate Directly to Your Topic of Interest
00:00 About Us (here)
[Music]
00:24 Introduction (here)
Hello. Get ready for some tech talk over coffee where we filter through the latest digital tech one sip at a time.
Welcome to the Filtered Brew, a tech podcast all about software. Your host is digital consultant Preston Hurd.
So join us for a cup of coffee and let's get into what's brewing on today's menu. In this second chapter of the Document Generation series, the host Preston Hurd is going to be telling real world stories about retailers illustrating each of the four categories of DocGen for Salesforce.
We've also created a complete buyer’s guide on our website, so we'll be sure to include a link to that in the podcast description.
It begins with document generation automation where Nike automates B2B sales proposals and Best Buy streamlines partner onboarding through Salesforce driven workflows.
Next is electronic signature and digital agreements featuring ASOS and Sephora who use e- signature tools to manage influencer contracts and employee onboarding.
The third category, forms and workflow automation spotlights Patagonia, which automates nonprofit grant applications, and Zara, which uses forms to manage customer feedback and returns.
Finally, in enterprise content management, Target centralizes vendor contracts for compliance, while Nordstrom manages marketing assets and cross team content collaboration. So grab your cup of coffee and get ready for some rich strategies that are brewed for retail but can be served up to any industry.
Preston, let's get started with the first category. Take it from here.
02:26 Doc Gen Automation (here)
Let's dive right into it. Within Doc Gen, we've got document generation automation, the closest aligned category to document generation. And let's look at a couple of different stories. Let's look at one brand and let's look at one retailer, right? Because you've got brands that sell OEM manufacturers, vendors that sell to retailers.
So, let’s look at Nike as a brand. Nike sells its shoes across a bunch of retailers, right? So Nike, how would they do this?
Nike has a B-2B business-to business sales team. And this sales team manages literally thousands of wholesale accounts globally across all of their sales reps. And these reps that could be manually creating custom product order forms, you know, seasonal pricing proposals, etc. for each regional distributor that they're selling to B2B.
Now with document generation integrated within Salesforce, remember we're talking about Salesforce can with a click of a button automatically generate tailored custom looking personalized sales proposals, order confirmations populated with all their latest pricing, product SKs, account terms, etc. So that's one example. Uh retailers, right?
Take an electronics retailer. Take Best Buy. Best Buy has an online marketplace. They with their e-commerce marketplace. So now we're talking about the dot com side of Best Buy, not the brick and mortar, works with hundreds of third-party electronics sellers.
And what account managers used to do is manually draft these partner agreements, onboarding guides for each of them, monthly sales performance summaries for each seller.
And now with Document Generation, they're able to take their Salesforce data again and then automatically generate customized packets, onboarding packets that have sales reports that have renewal contracts.
And then each one of these is dynamically pulling in seller specific product SKUs, revenue data, compliance terms, etc. through Doc Gen and automation of docs specifically.
04:53 E-Signature (here)
All right, the next category two, e signature. So ASOS, don't know if you've heard of them. they are really I would say beyond emerging as far as a a fashion brand to the younger demographic.
That's really who they focus on. And they're always partnering with other fashion brands and influencers as well. And back when I was working at Yahoo before this, I actually went to a really cool ASOS store. It was a pop-up store where did this.
They they were actually within a Nordstrom at this mall. It was really a neat outdoor mall where there was a Nordstrom in Los Angeles. It was called "The Grove. If you're ever in LA, I highly recommend you go there.
They had some really unique concepts. bringing in DJs and music and custom embroidery and all that to reach a younger Gen Z demographic within this ASOS Nordstrom store.
And just like this example of ASOS and Nordstrom coming together and signing some sort of digital partnership agreement, I'm sure they did, or licensing contract or something along those lines.
They need an array of documents with influencers. They need NDAs for example and all of these things happen with e signature. So ASOS automates the whole sending, signing, storing of these agreements, all these partner agreements allowing partners worldwide literally to quickly review sign contracts all from their mobile device.
And then marketing and legal teams can track signature status in real time, ensure campaigns to launch on schedule without chasing paperwork across time zones, all because that's buttoned up through an e signature process. So there's one example.
Another fashion retailer is within the beauty category, Sephora.
Let's look at Sephora opening up a new store. So across all these different regions, they're doing new store openings.
When they do that, they need to hire dozens of associates and their HR team in particular needs to streamline that process.
So they do that with digital offer letters and onboarding paperwork through automated workflows and e signatures as a part of that process where candidates can review sign documents right on their mobile device and then HR can track the completion status in real time eliminating any delays bringing everybody in quicker without the formerly paper-based contract.
Scan a PDF, send it in, and that helps them open new stores faster and staff their stores with a bunch of new people. It's new store people, seasonal people, whatever it may be.
07:56 Forms & Workflows (here)
Third category - Forms and Workflow Automation.
Here's a brand. Patagonia
collects a lot of grant applications from other nonprofit partners that work in these environmental initiatives and they use a form automation platform to do that. So the brand built this online grant application form feed and it feeds directly into Salesforce from the data on the form and then each app is tagged routed for review structured for the reporting without any manual data entry.
It's all an automated workflow process from these forms. It can notify reviewers when submissions are ready and then trigger different status updates or other workflows to the applicants totally streamlining the process of grant making and improving the applicant experience as well from a transparency standpoint.
Another example of Forms Workflow Automation. Zara is a fast fashion retail subsidiary, Spanish company of a bigger retailing group. And it's the Zara brand. They have their own brand. They don't sell other brands. I don't know if you're familiar with them or not, but they have an e-commerce division that streamlined customer feedback and the issue resolution process specifically with form automation. So, a customer submits a return request or a product quality complaint comes in, it's the wrong size or defective or whatever it may be.
Automatically, that creates a Salesforce case and then routes it to the correct team for the correct action for follow-up. So, you can trigger an automatic follow-up email. Satisfaction surveys are triggered automatically. And this form-driven workflow reduces the customer's wait time. The customer is happy. they're getting better service.
It gets rid of feedback loops over and over again and then improves the whole post purchase experience.
10:07 ECM (here)
Fourth category, Enterprise Content Management. And I'm flying through these Target. Uh one of the biggest mass
market retailers. We became a vendor of record and we submitted all this paperwork. Well, that's all changed. Now these vendor contracts are all stored in a centralized doc platform called an enterprise content management platform. Target can ensure that all these are stored securely and they're searchable. So keywords you can search, expiration dates you can search.
It's a secure repository where legal can look up when's the renewal, what are the terms. it's only accessible to certain parties. So maybe just certain people within legal that are overseeing that particular division.
And so there's a lot of compliance things to consider there. And it it's robust. It takes all that into account.
All of these agreements, these vendor agreements are centralized.
But there's more to it than that. Within enterprise content management, you can have product image assets. You can have marketing usage rights within the ECM system.
Nordstrom which does a lot of advertising. Anything in the apparel beauty categories does a lot of advertising and its e-commerce and in store teams have access to the latest approved content.
Product teams can quickly locate things for seasonal lookbooks that they're creating. Marketing teams can pull licensed brand imagery. Think about advertising and wanting to create a “lookbook” for, you know, a certain season.
And through Enterprise Content Management, Nordstrom can have role-based access and controls across very sensitive vendor specific contracts. and all of the creative teams can work efficiently as well to be able to have creative content for their advertising across departments through enterprise content management.
Really making that a fast seamless process to give whichever department what they need when they need it and the right access to do their jobs. Hopefully for each of these four categories, me just running quickly through all these retailer and brand examples was helpful to see in the real world how these different aspects of DocGen are used.
12:42 Conclusion (here)
Thanks Preston for putting that retail spin on Doc Gen. It really helps our listeners to better understand the software.
And up next, we've got a quick deep dive on the subcategory Document Generation Automation. really breaking down the tech. So, be sure to check that out next. And thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Filtered Brew podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the retail stories and took away some insights that you can apply to your own digital strategy and within your own industry. Be sure to visit the filteredbrew.com. It's the place to go for the latest software tech insights and where you can find more episodes and additional resources.
If you liked what you heard, don't forget to follow, rate, and share the show. It really helps us grow and reach more listeners like you. This has been The Filtered Brew Podcast, where conversations are crafted, refined, and brewed to perfection.
Catch you in the next deep dive episode and keep those ideas percolating.
