Don’t underestimate the significance of your contract management process; it could be costly to your organization. Unfortunately, this operation touches the entire organization. This impact’s reach extends from sales and marketing to procurement and human resources. In fact, the International Association for Contract & Commercial Management finds that ineffective contract management can negatively impact your bottom line by up to 9 percent of annual revenue. Manual processes, insufficient visibility into workloads, a lack of checks and balances and inconsistent documentation put organizations at risk for revenue leakage, pricing disputes, problematic vendor relationships and missed opportunities.
However, organizations that take control experience improved performance management, reduced reputational risk, and simplified regulatory compliance. Increase the visibility into the contract management process from start to finish with an enterprise content management (ECM) solution.
Five key ways to transform contract management with ECM
1. Establish a Central Repository
Contracts and supporting documents reside in various locations. As a result, it blocks managers from a complete view of contracts and related content. With ECM, organizations capture, store and manage all contracts and supporting information in one secure location.
2. Create Contract Controls
Specifically, the lack of standardization in a contract management process allows for a margin of error. Unfortunately, employees may not know if they are using the correct or current version of a contract. Additionally, storing contract information in a secure ECM system improves the transparency. With the right solution, however, users have the ability to create electronic notes, track conversations, and capture revisions and supporting documents. All in all, those functions can be performed directly from their email inboxes.
3. Automate
Unfortunately, time spent waiting for signatures, changing approval rules, and manual tasks create bottlenecks in the contract management process. Additionally, legal departments spend time searching for more information. Similarly, internal partners have little to no insight into contract process requirements and timelines. An ECM solution automatically routes contracts to the right individuals. Organizations can benefit from faster, more efficient reviews, and approvals. Staff can access contracts and complete reviews with ease – whether in the office, via mobile devices or directly from line-of-business applications.
Download our free ebook for more details and the remaining key ways to transform contract management with ECM.
