Gil PaulApplied AI for business Case study 03 / Handshake
Case study 03 · Levinsohn Textiles

Handshake. Every retailer's compliance requirements, consolidated into one factory agreement.

And it is designed to keep that agreement current every time a retailer changes the rules.

When I started in business, a handshake was enough. It told a customer the product would meet their needs, come from a capable factory, and arrive on time at the agreed price. Today, a single retailer's compliance manual can run to hundreds of pages.

Retailers expect your factories and partners to follow the same rules you signed. If you import, distribute or resell, you need a complete, current library of compliance agreements with every vendor.

Handshake reads every customer's manual and builds one master manual that covers them all. Your factory partners sign it. When a retailer updates its requirements, Handshake is designed to check them against the manual, so a person can approve the update and every signatory can be notified.

How Handshake works

Many manuals · one agreement
The Handshake workflow Threads run from five retailer compliance manuals into read and compare, then build the master manual. A compliance owner approves the manual at an approval gate. The thread then splits to every factory partner, each of whom signs, and the signatures gather in a signature library. Above, a dashed loop shows a new retailer requirement being checked against the manual, approved at a second gate, and sent to every signatory.
The rules it runs on

Nothing changes without a person.

Handshake is designed to check every new requirement against the manual and propose the change. Only the compliance owner can approve it.

These are Handshake's rules today, and I'm glad to work with you to customize any tool to fit your needs.

Gil Paul · gilpaul.com01 / 02
Gil PaulApplied AI for business Case study 03 / Handshake
What it changed

Countless hours a year, down to a few.

Keeping up with every retailer's manual, and keeping every factory's agreement in line with them, took countless hours of compliance work each year. With Handshake, it takes a few.

There is one manual to maintain and one agreement for every factory partner to sign.

One manual

Every customer's rules in one place

Laid out with clear headings and links between sections, so a vendor can find what applies to them.

Every factory

One standard, room to negotiate

It starts with broad protections for your company. When a factory pushes back, your compliance lead decides where to compromise. Handshake is designed to track each exception.

Among the best

In a vendor partner's words

Not too much, not too little. The co-founder and CEO of a vendor partner, after working through dozens of customer manuals, called it among the best, if not the best.

Where this applies

If you sell to multiple large retailers and track agreements with many vendors, Handshake can do this for you.

Work with Gil

Let's find your Handshake.

I bring 40 years of business experience and hands-on experience building AI tools that people use every day. We start with a conversation about the work your team finds most tedious. A defined need becomes a project proposal. A broader question can begin with a focused assessment.

We agree on deliverables, fees and timing before any work begins.

Connect with Gil on LinkedIn ↗ gilpaul.com

I created Handshake at Levinsohn Textiles, and I present this case study with their permission.

Gil Paul · gilpaul.com02 / 02