Configure This

I’ve always admired configurability as a wonderful thing to explore.  Configurability that is available to me from a product or a tool that consistently anticipates my future needs is a pure delight.

Take a good winter coat for example - I’ve been thinking about this as winter settles in this year in Chicago!  As the cold air stiffens and the snow begins to blow, perfectly placed drawstrings and adjustable straps enabled me to cinch out the cold in an instant, in all the right places.

Or, take your car as another example.  Moveable seat positions, mirror placement, and temperature settings have long been accepted as basic table stakes, but what if the seats don’t go back far enough or the mirrors fail to adjust correctly? 

It’s not enough to simply offer configurability, it must work for you, requiring keen insights and vision on the part of the manufacturer, the vendor, or even your enterprise software provider.

It true.  Much of the software industry has arrived at the same conclusion, accentuating configurability for closing gaps between vanilla functionality and each of their customer’s unique business requirements.  Gone are the days when enterprise software heavily relied on expensive customizations and maintenance fees for supporting tailored on-prem solutions.  Instead, as the industry matures and the SaaS model grows in the Cloud, modern platforms are now required to offer system configurability – by the business user – right out of the box.

The challenge, however, is for the software vendor to “hit the mark” and produce the most meaningful configurations without overwhelming the user with excessive tasks or unnecessary options.  To get this right, the provider will rely on their vision and their industry expertise, foreseeing their customers’ most important challenges as they consider which configurations to promote.  If done successfully, the system will seemingly anticipate each of their customers’ unique needs while providing a configurable solution through a simple and intuitive interface.  In my field, I work with all types of attorneys and contract owners, General Counsel and legal teams - each with their own contracting processes, protocols and approvals.  Self-configurable contract workflows, permissions and notifications are just some of examples where my clients easily tailor key elements of the Malbek Contract Management System.

I suppose my point is, you can tell a lot about a software vendor and the potency of their solution by evaluating the available configurations they’ve set out for you.  In doing so, you’re offered a front-row seat into their vision, their mastery and ultimately their true capacity for addressing your most pressing challenges – clear as day!

I’m thrilled to be part of Malbek, where spot-on configurability is just one facet of our stalwart leadership for the next generation of contract lifecycle management.  Allow Malbek to unshackle your legal team from costly outdated systems and empower all your contracting associates with a new Contract Management System that delights.  If you’d like to hear more, come listen to a panel of legal industry experts discuss this and other current challenges facing today’s legal operations in the webinar Signs You Might Have a Contract Management Challenge.