Today we kick-off a new series focused on the "how to" steps involved in creating a contract. In this series, each week we will examine the simple steps to reach nirvana in contract management. Even though it might sound too good to be true, your organization can go from a disorganized, unsearchable, scattered collection of contract documents to a highly streamlined and efficient contracting process. And we are here to help!
Start with the simple task of the contract request. Very likely, your organization is set-up to receive emails from your staff across business units identifying the type of agreement they need, the terms of the relationship with the external party, and other key details. Once the legal operations or contracts team receives this request, they likely have to manually draft a contract agreement, hopefully using the latest approved template, and add all the key business terms from the email into the document. Or if using third-party paper, they have to review the language before proceeding to ensure the terms are agreeable. This process causes several challenges:
- It's slow and manual
- It requires data entry of terms from email into the agreement draft
- It's error prone and risky
- There is no visibility for the requester
Maybe in your organization, it is a bit more advanced. Maybe you have an online request form or self-service access to a tool, but does it guarantee the requester is using the latest boilerplate template? Does it ensure proper reviews occur before the document goes out to the customer? Does the requester have full visibility into where their request is in the process? Or do they have to call and email the contracts team frequently asking about it?
These are common challenges that a CLM solution, like Malbek, can easily resolve. What if you could:
- Enable business teams to have self-service access to request a contract? This would mean you were always using the latest approved templates for the agreement type you need.
- Automatically draft the agreement based on the key business terms? This would make the document immediately available for the requester to share with the counterparty, saving time and effort.
- When using third-party paper, submit the external party document along with their request? Even better, what if AI-based guidance could automatically screen the document to extract key terms and identify key clauses?
- Provide real-time visibility and status to the requester and collaborating team on where each request is in the process? As a result, this would free up legal or contracts team from answering numerous calls and emails about the status of the contracts.
Make a common task, such as contract request, as smooth and efficient as possible. Talk to us to find out how.
