Finding the Right Contract Solution

Figuring out the best way to conquer the contracting issues you struggle with can be completely overwhelming. Where should you begin? After years of experience and countless conversations with other contracting professionals, we’ve put together a helpful webinar series that takes a systematic approach to finding the answer, “Pulling Back the Curtain: Things You Ought to Know When Choosing a CLM Partner and a Solution”.

Today we’re sharing Part 2 of our webinar series with you, Finding the Right Contract Solution. Once again, contract management veterans Stephanie Corey of UpLevel Ops, Teju Deshpande of Oya Solutions, and Malbek’s very own Matt Patel, share their experiences navigating the investigative phase of finding a contract management solution. Acknowledging there is a problem is just part of the battle. Figuring out how to solve it and consulting the right experts is just as critical.

Among other key activities, some of the ways you can prepare to address your contracting challenges is to:

• Identify your key contract requirements and prioritize them with internal stakeholders
• Consult with contracting and legal ops advisors to get their recommendations
• Determine which analyst and industry reports you should research
• Utilize industry-specific tools that compare your options

If you haven’t had a chance to listen to Part 1 – Signs You Might Have a Contract Management Challenge – it’s definitely worth your time, and stay tuned for our third installment coming soon – What You Do and Do Not Need in Your RFP. This clip from the second webinar in our CLM series looks at the steps involved in selecting the right contract solution:

"The wish list, if you will, or prioritization of requirements, I think as Steph had mentioned earlier, a lot of people start out by looking at demos. I think what is very helpful is to have what I would call a desired evaluation or checklist of items that are critical and important to the organization. They could be features and functionality, of course, whether the tool has capabilities to the integrations you’re looking for, the environment that you’re in. Most good contract lifecycle management systems will have the common elements that are required for CLM systems whether it is workflow and the ability to negotiate and redline easily, integration with e-signature tools, document assembly, repository, and dashboards. Good CLM tools will have those capabilities, but it is important to understand experience with integrations that your company needs. You also need to understand the capabilities of the tool itself from an implementation standpoint – how easy it is to evolve – because contract management systems are not static. They’re not one and done. Your company will continue to evolve. Your business models will change. Your templates will change. So it’s important to evaluate vendors or requirements from how often will my business process change or my templates change. And to have the ability to evaluate on that data point, which is how easy it is to implement and maintain. And the last important checklist item to consider is not only how easy it is to maintain and implement, but what are the skills and roles of people required to do that. It might be easy, for example, if you’re a technical developer who can program and code. It may not be so easy if you’re in legal operations, for example. So that’s an important distinction to make as you build your evaluation checklist," Teju Deshpande, Oya Solutions.