Friday 8 June 2012

Contract Management: Needed or Not?

Companies lose money each year from mismanaged contracts because many of them are lacking in formal contract procedures and controls, and the majority of organisations continue to organize their contracts in an ad-hoc manner. This combines to result in poor work collaborations, limited visibility and a higher degree of risk. The average contract cycle can take from 20 to up to 40 days to create, negotiate and finalise. With solution software it takes just minutes. Even more useful, the software can provide contract templates and contract assembly solutions that can draft a contract in a fraction of the time, as well as providing a contract clause library that allows legal clauses to be reused from other existing contracts.

The most basic contract management software packages allow companies to store copies of executed contracts, to control access and protect these contracts and to set up email notifications referring to key fates within the contracts. More sophisticated versions can give detailed audit trails and ensure that reviewers are working off the same document version - especially important during re-drafts and negotiations - and can be used to create business reports.

Previously, word-processing, the phone, email and fax were the only technology available to manage contracts, all of which do not have the capacity to automate or activate agreements. Manual processes and fragmented business systems create increased costs, poor collaboration and compliance resulting in dissatisfied or lost customers.  Is your company only monitoring compliance on a monthly, quarterly or ad hoc basis? This could leave you exposed to cost, performance and regulatory risk.

Contract management software establishes a searchable archive of all supplier contracts. It provides greater visibility and understanding of the contract to all concerned parties, offering a better understanding of obligations and most importantly, identifying areas where money can be saved.  By making any additions or re-drafting of contracts visible, it reduces the negotiation cycle time and can improve compliance and analysis. The software fosters greater work collaboration and therefore improves working relationships, now and for the future. Monitoring and analyzing contracts on a frequent basis in an efficient manner will minimize policy and regulatory non-compliance.

Even the smallest companies can benefit from these software programs.  The need for this software is not solely dependent on the quantity that a company processes, but also the amount of legislation and the level of complexity that their contracts contain. Contract management software can be invaluable to any company because of the protection it offers in any kind of business dispute or complaint.  Because all changes to contracts are recorded on a secure timeless, it create a piece of invaluable evidence that can protect your company again any claims.  Therefore, any company with more than 10 contracts would benefit from a basic software contract management program as it acts as valuable business insurance.

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