Intro:
Welcome to the Contract Lens podcast, brought to you by Malbek. In this podcast, we have conversations with contract management thought leaders and practitioners about everything contracts and its ecosystem. Today's episode is all about the free resources available when you're getting ready to choose a contract management solution. We are joined by Katy Werner, Managing Director of Legal Transformation Solutions at Epiq, a global technology enabled services leader, helping the legal industry and corporations streamline the administration of legal department and business operations. Katy is a legal and business transformation expert with a track record of modernizing the business of law and promoting humanity at work. So now it's time to relax, grab a glass of wine, and let's talk contracts.
Lee:
Hi Katy, thank you for joining us on today's podcast. Today's subject, I think, is going to be very exciting for a lot of our listeners out there. I think it's a subject that will be proved very compelling and useful, dare I say. Today, we're going to be talking about free to low cost resources to help choose the right CLM. Katy, the legal tech solution market can be quite confusing and complex. So where do folks start? What would that starting point look like?
Katy:
So there are a number of free and low cost resources that I believe aren't really well-known to the buying public. There are a lot of consultants and technology providers that do a lot of marketing and are better known, but there are also some organizations and professional associations like an association that used to be called the International Association of Commercial Contract Managers. It's called World Commerce and Contracting now. But they have a free system where you can plug in certain functions that you're looking for in your CLM system and it will pop out various brands of CLM systems based on what your business requirements are or your requirements are.
Katy:
And so that's a great way to start and kind of narrow down the overall universe. Are you looking for buy-side contracts? Sell-side contracts? Do you need something that is just pre-execution contract generation? Do you also want analytics post-execution? Are you mainly looking for a repository? Those kinds of things, to just help narrow the overall universe when you get started, because that's really ... It's a big universe when you first look at it as a whole.
Lee:
No, absolutely. Yes. I can imagine there being quite a lot of free resources and content out there and quite a bit for the users to sift through. What would you say would be the challenges and pitfalls, then, that users perhaps should be aware of as they work through these resources?
Katy:
There definitely are. And so I would counsel people to really lean toward resources that are offered by professional associations, nonprofits. I don't want to cast dispersions on any for-profit companies. I think a lot of those consultants and companies that offer opinions on technology, their so-called pay-to-play opinions, those can be good resources, and you can put them in the kitty with all of the other research that one does for CLM, but just keep in mind that they may be biased. And so to sort of steer clear of those for your real unbiased research information, try to go to things like ICCM or Legal Operations, which is a somewhat new function for legal. And you can find that your peers or others who work in the space have recommendations. Word of mouth, people who've actually implemented various CLM programs. Try to get the technology providers to give references and actually go talk to people who have implemented that technology find out what they really think. It's really important to find out what the real experience is with that technology.
Katy:
One way to tie it back to a benefit to Malbek and all technology providers, and this is absolutely true, is if clients do engage with service provider and consultant partners early and implement and migrate data properly when they buy technology and are happy with the result because of that, they will be very happy with the technology as well. And you will have happy clients that are references. Word of mouth are the ones that promote your tool to others. It helps your business. It's something that I don't think technology providers think about because ... It's something that legal providers think about all the time, but it's not something that I think tech thinks about a lot, because it's always like, okay, what's the next sale? But that's the way to the next sale, because then nothing can sink your sales more than having a really bad experience implementing a technology. Because then at CLOC and all those conferences, they just say, "Oh God, that was a nightmare." Then you've just got a bad name.
Lee:
Yeah. That full cycle is very important. Many organizations do focus on that sale and once they get a customer on board, they're kind of left out in the ether with minimum support. And if they do need the support, then it's expensive professional services engagements.
Katy:
Yep.
Lee:
Yeah. And the organizations that are approaching a little bit differently, that are making their system perhaps configurable, as opposed to having to have professional engagements, are probably the ones that are more attuned to how modern organizations function.
Katy:
Yep. Absolutely.
Lee:
We've definitely seen online resources sites such as G2 and Capterra that allow for user reviews, almost like an Amazon type of kind of review-
Katy:
Right, or a Yelp.
Lee:
Or a Yelp, yeah. So, as you say, these free resources get real insights from real users, so it should be very useful.
Katy:
Yeah. And that makes all the difference. I mean, because you want to know what the pitfalls are. Anyone can pay to have someone say great things about their technology, but you want to get the real scoop.
Lee:
Absolutely. Absolutely. And even from kind of listening to what you're saying about, you don't need to go that whole transformation. You don't need the whole organizational change piece. Sometimes it's unnecessary, especially when your processes are perhaps not as complex.
Katy:
Right. Exactly. It's just a matter of paying attention to them and knowing that they are important and that somebody in the organization needs to look at them and not just go out and buy technology.
Lee:
Perfect. With the free resources, we've talked about the various sites and the unbiased reports that users can get access to out there. What are the low cost resources that our users can consider or should consider if they have some kind of budget to spend in that area?
Katy:
The reason I started looking into free and low cost resources is I had clients and prospective clients who are approaching me, and I felt like there were these pay-to-play research reports, and then there were consultants that were offering large, full blown transformation analyses that were $40,000 or something, and nothing in between. And so what does the average in-house person who is in procurement or a contract manager or in-house attorney or paralegal who's just been tasked with researching CLM systems and needs to find some information, and maybe has a little budget but doesn't want to spend $40,000 on the selection of the CLM, because then they still have to spend money on the CLM and implementing it and migrating the data and all those other things? So I thought, there must be more out there. And that's when I started looking into what was available at a lower cost. And again, I would really urge people to look at things like CLOC, which is Corporate Legal Operations Consortium. The Legal Operations groups really expand their information from just the technology to other areas like implementing the technology, migrating data, all that sort of thing.
Katy:
But what we did at Epiq, where I am, is we started looking at what can we do to help people with this issue and have bite-size chunks of tools that are unbiased, we are technology agnostic, and we could have tools that they could use for certain areas. Let's say they've done their own free research. And they've decided, we're getting a procurement CLM tool, or we're getting a buy-side CLM tool, or we're getting a sales side CLM tool. And I know that I really want contract generation. Do you have market research report on those tools? Well, we have legal business advisory group that does basically surveys and researches all the technology markets, including CLM, and we can provide that at a flat fee. Some of those we even provide for free. We have a market summary. That's just a kind of free overview that we'll go over with clients, but then we can really find out what clients are looking for and tailor our information and counseling and sort of dialogue to what the solution that client needs, and then not have to have a full transformation consulting engagement because not every client needs that,
Lee:
That's very insightful there, Katy. You're actually right. You mentioned that not all organizations need that full consultancy approach. So tell me, what would be your recommendations for paid resources that really do balance value to cost?
Katy:
Yeah, it's funny. Maybe I want to correct my statement. I should say not all organizations need or can afford a full transformation engagement or consulting exercise going through that. Of course, I think, I really believe that all organizations need to take a good look at their people and processes and the entire ecosystem of their contracting function, not just slapping a technology on top of broken processes, but they just may not have that luxury of doing that with the help of an expert. So what we do through these little bite-size engagements is we can have our experts come in and help our clients decide what is the best bang for your buck in terms of your consulting budget.
Katy:
So if you only have a $1000 or $5000, if what you think your biggest problem in getting your contracting function to be more efficient is the fact that you have 50 touch points, let's spend that money on fixing that part of the process, and how do we use a Six Sigma or a lean workflow process to correct that, get that fixed, and then use that when you select the CLM tool, when we implement it, when we associate all of the processes and workflows that go into implementing that CLM with the contracting function. It's really looking at it holistically and narrowing your focus on what is the real issue here. But it requires somebody actually paying attention and looking at the entire contracting function.
Lee:
Yeah, that's a good point as well, which leads me ... It's a good segue into my next question. How do organization reconcile, as you said, that kind of the holistic approach, the solution that will integrate with the organizations' third party applications, but still meet the core legal need. We hear that as a big problem for many organizations to overcome.
Katy:
Well, I think that's a big issue in general in the technology space, kind of the enterprise platform solution versus point solutions, integrated solution versus best of breed, legal solution versus ecosystem solution, or it's sort of like big integrated versus small API joined ... you know. That that debate's been going on since the beginning of time. But I think it's really coming to the fore right now as we continue to get more and more sophisticated. And I don't know that there's a right answer for everybody. I think that my view is that each organization is different. And our approach is, when we talk to clients and potential clients, is to say, "What do you currently have in your stack? What is your budget? Do you want to use what you currently have? Do you want to scrap the whole thing and start over? What are your goals?"
Katy:
The very first thing has to be, what are your objectives? What are your primary objectives for this initiative? What do you want? What are you trying to do? Are you just getting a CLM because everybody's getting a CLM? Or what is it? Do you want reporting? Do you want to be able to see into your contracts? Do you want to be able to complete sales transactions faster? Increase revenue? What are your primary goals in this initiative? And that should start the entire process of acquiring a CLM tool and then everything falls from there. And what I recommend is that you bring all of the functions into the decision-making to a certain degree in sort of a champions team. And then it doesn't mean that you have to include every single requirement in the selection process, but you at least give everyone a voice so that everyone feels like they've participated in that selection process.
Lee:
Yes, no, you're absolutely right, Katy. I can definitely attest to, when I speak with customers that have too many voices involved, it can be convoluted. And as you say, what is the primary objective? Is it a sell-side requirement? Is it sales velocity? Or is it more of a risk management? Do we need to know kind of-
Katy:
Exactly.
Lee:
So yeah, really great point. So in talking about risk, this is a big area we've talked about on the podcast before, but when people are researching CLMs, the big kind of question in the room is, how do I manage my legacy contracts? How do I migrate my legacy contracts? That complex process. What are your thoughts on that, Katy?
Katy:
Well, that is ... I have lots of thoughts on that, and that's a really sticky wicket. It is something that I don't want to offend here. I recognize who's hosting this podcast. But technology providers generally don't spend a lot of time explaining how challenging it can be to migrate legacy contract data to a new CLM tool and make sure that that data is all clean and in the right format and accurate. Because it's the old garbage in, garbage out. If you don't have accurate legacy data, or if you don't have the right data in your system, then your reports are going to be meaningless. Your metrics are going to be meaningless. So if your main objective is to get visibility into what your contracts say or what your contracts tell you about your business, if you don't have good data, then they're not going to tell you anything.
Katy:
And so that's really an essential part of the whole process and it should be done early. How far back do you want to go in terms of reporting? What do you want to report on? What are the key elements of your contracts that you really want to know about? Do you want to know how long your payment term is? Do you want to know what your limitations of liability? Do you want to know if you have any liquidated damages clauses? Do you want to know how many of your vendors are X, Y, or Z? What are the things that are really important that you're looking to find out information about through this process? And those are the things that need to be what we call abstracted and made into structured data so that those reports can be very, very clear and accurate. Because even if the contracts are readable in a new system, that doesn't mean the reports are going to be accurate unless the data is entered in fields that are completely accurate.
Lee:
That makes a lot of sense. From speaking with customers, it is a very complex process. And many a time, as you say, organizations don't have a handle on what is that metadata that I need to extract and what benefit that they can get from that data.
Katy:
And often it requires ... It's something that we do at Epiq, and it often requires ... Many technology providers don't even do that or do it to a limited degree. Like, they just load it in and don't check for fields or accuracy. And you need a migration partner to help you plan, create a taxonomy, do all those things. That's an entire expense that often isn't even budgeted.
Lee:
Yeah, yeah. That's very true. But would you say, Katy, that there is some benefit in mapping out the new processes and workflows for how your ideal contracting process would look moving forward and then work backwards in bringing in legacy contracts and mapping them to your new kind of legal playbook?
Katy:
Yes, yes, yes. Processes first. Processes first, then legacy data, then tool. So get everything organized the way that you want it to run, then find the tools that will make that happen. Technology only helps facilitate your objective, and that's all it can do. It doesn't make magic happen. There's not an easy button. It doesn't exist.
Lee:
If technology has taught us one thing, it's taught us to be even more patient. Right?
Katy:
Right. Right. And I mean, the best technology facilitates a lot of great things, very easily. And so those are the really great platforms and tools. But they still just do that. They're only as good as the companies and people who are implementing them. They just don't magically stand up and do all the work themselves.
Lee:
As much as we would like them to.
Katy:
Yes.
Lee:
We know that there are a lot of free resources out there, from what you're saying, and there's a lot of low cost options out there. So once organizations have got their head around, okay, we understand what this can do for us in terms of the business benefits and reaching our corporate objectives. Just rounding off that cycle, in your experience, Katy, and once customers start selecting the vendors to really validate, what would that ideal number look like? We have customers that come to us and say, "We've looked at 15 to 20," and another customers that have narrowed it down to a core three. Is there an ideal number?
Katy:
I've been asked that question, and I don't know that there is a specific number, but I would think when you're getting into the real weeds, if you can do as much research in advance and narrow it down to five, and then even to three, before you really get into going over all of the functionality. I mean, that's what I mean by some of the other resources that I've talked about. By that time, you should know that kind of tool you're looking for, whether you want an all-around open tool where you create the workflows and the tool is very flexible and can be customized. Or you're a company that doesn't have a lot of workflows, is sort of starting out, has a rather immature contracting function, and needs a tool that is very structured, already has all those workflows, you need something that does that for you. So those are all the kinds of things you want to think about. And so hopefully you've gotten to that point and you can narrow down to the best of breed in that narrow slice of the market, and then you can really zero in on which one is going to be the best for your particular needs.
Lee:
No, that's fantastic, Katy. What would be your final thoughts for users when they are embarking on this CLM journey?
Katy:
I think that really the most important thing is to, just as in with any legal transformation initiative, and that's the group that I'm in, legal transformation, finding a partner that you trust and engaging with them at any level, whether it be at a free kind of conversational level, a sort of limited, more superficial consulting level, or something deeper and then into a service provider kind of relationship, engage with someone in that space early. Don't try to do it all on your own because there's a lot out there. And there are folks like me, like a lot of others that I know, that I can refer people to, who have a lot of knowledge. So even if I don't know, or I'm not familiar with a certain area, I know people who do and they can help you just get to a place that is a lot farther down the path quickly, and you don't have to go through a lot of sort of painful frustration getting there. And then you can sort of start at a much better point in the process.
Lee:
And that is very insightful advice, Katy. Thank you so much for that. And with that, where can our listeners get hold of you? How can our listeners engage with your expertise?
Katy:
Well, my email address is katy.werner@epiqglobal.com. And that's our website as well, www.epiqglobal.com. And that's Katy Werner.
Lee:
Perfect. Well, Katy, thank you so much for sharing your expertise and insight and advice. And for those listeners out there that are embarking on the task of researching a CLM, know that there are absolutely fantastic free and low cost resources that can be leveraged. Thank you, Katy. Have a wonderful rest of the day.
Katy:
Thanks so much, Lee, take care.
Lee:
Thank you.
