As companies work to beat out the competition, taking a deeper look into contract management can be a driving force of success. When contracts accidentally expire or key milestones are missed, it can handicap your business. Effective contract management improves workflow efficiency and leads to a more progressive and well-functioning organization.

The following 5 contract management tools and features can revolutionize the way your organization manages contracts.

5 Key Contract Management Practices for Procurement

Procurement is one of the most complicated sides of running a business. Throw in the legal aspects of contract management and it becomes even more challenging to run a procurement department efficiently and cost-effectively.

Sales teams are critical to many businesses' revenue, so empowering your sales people is essential. The last thing sales wants to do is lose valuable time to close struggling with contract documents. It is crucial to employ a contract management solution that automates and streamlines the contracting process by integrating with Salesforce (or whichever CRM your company uses). The outcome will be a smoother experience with drafting, negotiating, and executing contracts.

When contract lifecycle management is overlooked in business operations, it leads to unnecessary financial losses and can reduce operational efficiencies. For Sales, Legal, and Finance teams, adhering to contract management best practices is essential.

From contract drafting and storage to speedy approval times, here are 10 key contract management standards and best practices that should be applied to any CLM process.

Welcome to another installment of our series "You ask. We answer" where we answer some of the most common questions that come from people like you. So, let's get started!

How Malbek is like Amazon Prime

You would have to be living under a rock to not know about Amazon Prime these days. You can order anything — from a mattress to a candle — and within two days you get it on your doorstep. You can search for what you need, figure out if it is eligible for two-day delivery, read the reviews on the product, and get it in your hands in a fraction of the time that would take you to use a different online retailer.  Instead of struggling with long delivery times like other companies, Amazon chose to listen to what people wanted and made a fast and easy way to find and get what you need. With all that said, imagine if we applied that concept to contracting. What if you can get your contracts delivered in two days or less? That sounds like a dream, right?

Well, get ready to pinch yourself because two-day contracting is absolutely a reality — with the right provider, of course.

Recently, Team Malbek India held a photography contest as a fun employee activity. They took pictures using their phone or camera devices and submitted them for the contest. Although no one on the team claimed to be a photographer, the talent evident in each of the 30 images that were submitted might say otherwise. Such amazing creativity!

To ensure that the contest was fair, I asked one of my friends, David Adams, who is an experienced photographer on the side, to judgethe pictures and help select the winner. I asked him to spend a few minutes to review the pictures, identify the winners, and give a short reason why he judged the photos the way he did.

When you live in an RV half of the year, like I do (check out my last blog post for some context), conserving resources is more than an environmental choice. I try to organize everything I do based on how much it will save me in time, aggravation, and cost. That means I'm always looking for the fewest steps and miles to drive, the least amount of water, propane, power, gas to consume. I mean, I only do my dishes once a day. It's not because I hate doing the dishes (which I admit is true, but not my point), but because it saves water, work, and future problems from arising.