Why should an organisation switch to CLM?

Manual contract lifecycle management practically compels contract managers to supervise task delegation themselves and to nudge everyone taking part in the approval process to carry out their allocated responsibilities. Any delay caused by a party concerned slows the approval procedure.

Anyone that uses a manual contract management procedure is familiar with the challenges and annoyances it causes. If this is the scenario, you and your team have probably encountered one or more of the following issues that have made it difficult for you to perform your job:

• You can't access or discover a certain contract
• You lack the contract data required to make prompt, well-informed judgments.
• You go through tiresome, time-consuming contract chores for an excessive period of time,

which keeps you from concentrating on more beneficial company activities

You may overcome all of these typical problems and more by switching to an online contract management procedure. Many businesses are motivated to look for an online solution by one of three factors: either rapid business growth that results in a higher contract volume, the need for leadership to regain control over a poorly managed portfolio, or a specific contracting incident that ends up costing the company time, money, or harms its reputation. There are several examples of issues that might have been prevented with an electronic contract management system, such as when a valuable contract was unknowingly renewed or a crucial vendor agreement went missing. Here are a few of the main explanations why companies switch from traditional to online contract administration.

1. Streamline Contracts & Manage Better

A huge chunk of businesses generally manages their contracts using manual methods by default. Such organisations battle to locate their contracts, which at the age of digitalisation should be a few clicks away. These two discoveries are inextricably linked. Recognizing where to go for your contracts might be difficult if they are spread over a variety of shared drives, email inboxes, computer desktops, and file cabinets. Even if you know where a contract is, there is no assurance you will be able to access it.

Your most crucial papers will always be available if you save your contacts in a safe, online system. This is crucial in any circumstance that calls for remote access to your agreements, and business continuity management should take it into account heavily. You need the means to access the contracts that keep your firm running when unplanned occurrences prohibit you from coming to your workplace. In response to incidents that disrupt routine operations, legal departments, in particular, will probably see an upsurge in contract questions.

2. Better Visibility & Faster Access to Contracts

Agreements must always be under the total supervision of corporate counsel and other participants in the contract management process. It follows that you are able to confidently and rapidly respond to any contract inquiry, and you understand where if you don't already know the answers, to discover them. the capacity to prove to have the expertise to support your claims with contract information both individual and professional achievement. If contracts are managed manually, you run the danger of being caught off guard by inquiries that you are unable to address.

It is also difficult to get a high-level perspective of your contract portfolio when you rely on a manual method. Your organization may be making decisions without sufficient knowledge of how they will affect other contracts if there isn't a single central location where everyone involved in contracts can go to get comprehensive information about the contract. For users to communicate contract data and insights with department heads, senior management, and other people that want transparency into certain contract specifics, many online systems come with reporting options.

Online contracts may be accessible at any time to begin making plans for necessary adjustments, such as renegotiation or restructuring, and are far simpler to handle than a portfolio spread over several locations or computer screens. With an online contract management system, you always know where to turn when you need to refer to a certain agreement or contract information, such as the contract's value, the terms for termination notice, or the dispute resolution process. This is relevant whenever you need to handle an existing contract, and it also makes it simpler to locate and consult archived contracts that include crucial details for the establishment of new contracts.

3. Put an end to the tedious and time-consuming process

Manual contract administration takes time, as the term implies. Many components of the contract management process may be streamlined and automated, producing benefits for your organisation. However, if you don't have such tools, you're stuck using up valuable staff time on simple, low-level activities. You understand how time-consuming it is to keep track of all the dates, deadlines, and commitments to make sure your agreements stay in good standing if you're in charge of managing a significant portfolio and you now rely on manual methods. Additionally, a manual review procedure makes it unnecessarily difficult, and time-consuming to access the information you want. As your inventory of agreements grows, each of these difficulties gets worse.

You may automate your contract administration procedure with the use of an online contract management system. Many tedious, monotonous contract management tasks can be consolidated and simplified so that you and your team spend less time trying to manage contracts and more time concentrating on higher-value business activities. These tasks include finding specific clauses and keywords, updating stakeholders on the status of the contract, and tracking approaching deadlines.

4. Staying ahead of the Curve

Every contract should be carefully reviewed to determine whether it makes sense to extend it at the appropriate time. when a contract renews itself without your consent you're missing the chance to end it if it's no longer necessary or isn't working, negotiate better terms or implement modifications to conform to regulatory changes in the sector. The risks of manual contract administration include missing these deadlines might cost your company money and time to fix the problem.

Using a combination of calendar reminders and written notes to stay on top of crucial contract deadlines leaves you open to oversight and human mistake. Another frequent circumstance that forces many organisations relying on traditional work to eventually search for an online alternative is missing a crucial contract deadline.

Bottom Line

Chains of command are frequently complicated and differ across parties, which can make the contract approval procedure challenging. With automatic approval routing, the finest CLM software clarifies approval authority. The approval procedure is accelerated and optimised by using a uniform format under a reliable CLM application. Automated alerts and reminders about when a document needs approval to expedite the procedure and encourage responsibility. Affected parties can immediately get updates on who must approve tasks and actions linked to a certain contract thanks to updates regarding changes in the chain of approval.

Manual contract lifecycle management practically compels contract managers to supervise task delegation themselves and to nudge everyone taking part in the approval process to carry out their allocated responsibilities. Any delay caused by a party concerned slows the approval procedure. Be informed at the right moment via notifications and automated alerts thanks to contract lifecycle management software that has workflow automation enabled. With the right tracking tools, managing internal communication and negotiation is made easier. By removing possible roadblocks and ensuring that everyone participating in the approval process completes the necessary stages on time, workflow automation reduces the time it takes to approve contracts.