No matter what industry you're in - construction, finance, law, medicine, etc - your business is going to have to go through the contract management process. Depending on what you're doing, you may end up entering into a number of contracts each day. Having more contracts under your belt is a sure sign of success, but are you managing your contracts effectively?
The Importance of Contract Management
The term "contract lifecycle" refers to a contract as it moves through the different stages of the contract management process. It's important that your business be able to effectively move contracts through the contract lifecycle. Companies that exhibit poor contract management risk losing 9.2% of revenue each year. Conversely, companies that show effective contract management show a 20% higher lead conversion rate. Basically, your company can't afford not to look for ways to improve contract management. There are tons of ways to improve the contract management process, but the best way is to implement a Contract management system.
A SharePoint contract management solution is a great tool for automating your contracts and making the contract management process more efficient. A recent study by Aberdeen Research found that the administrative costs of contracts are reduced by 25-30% when using an automated contract management system. However, there are more benefits that a SharePoint contract management system offers than just reduced prices. Let's take a look at 9 of the biggest reasons that you should adopt a SharePoint contract management system.
9 Reasons for Adopting SharePoint Contract Management System
- Standardized Processes
- Automated Tasks
- Central Repository
- Contract Collaboration
- Powerful Search Function
- Accurate Reporting
- Microsoft Tool Integration
- Secure Storage
- Single Sign-On
Standardized Processes
One of the most powerful aspects of a SharePoint contract management system is that it allows you to standardize much of the contract management process. Instead of doing a different set of tasks each time, a SharePoint contract management system allows you to build out every step of the process ahead of time. This way, there is no confusion over what either party in the process should be doing and when they should be doing it. Instead, you can enter into the process each time with confidence knowing that your SharePoint CMS will be there to provide a standardized structure.
Automated Tasks
A recent study from DocuSign found that almost 40% of respondents said that human error impacts the contracting process often or very often. Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to remove human error from the contract management process entirely? Thankfully a SharePoint contract management system allows you to use workflows in order to automate a lot of the more mundane contracting tasks. By automating these tasks, you can remove a large amount of human error from the process and make it much more efficient.
Central Repository
A report from the Journal of Contract Management found that 71% of business can't locate at least 10% of their contracts. Lost contracts can be a huge compliance risk for businesses and/or cost your company a fair amount of money. That's why it's so great that a SharePoint CMS allows you to store all of your documents in a single, central repository. Instead of having your contracts strewn about in different databases, everything will be stored in a single location that makes it so that your team is always able to find the contracts that they are looking for.
Contract Collaboration
Everyone knows that SharePoint is a fantastic tool for sharing and working on documents, and that extends to a SharePoint contract management system. Employees on your team can co-author the same contracts and documents easily from wherever they are. A SharePoint CMS also allows you to smoothly share documents with external parties so that you cut down on the amount of back and forth emails. The best part is that due to SharePoint being highly secure, you'll be able to share access without having to worry about malicious third parties.
Powerful Search Function
A recent survey found that 65% of legal professionals identify time lost on administrative tasks as their biggest pain point. One thing that significantly adds to this is the time spent having to track down different contracts. By tagging your contracts with different metadata, you can make it super easy to search for contracts in your SharePoint contract management system. Instead of having to scroll through pages and pages of contract, you can search for specific keywords and find what you're looking for quickly. This can be great for cutting down on contract turnaround.
Accurate Reporting
Much like any other facet of your business, you need to be able to effectively track what is happening to be able to manage it. If you cannot get an accurate report of what is going on with your contract management, you won't be able to make informed decisions. Luckily, a SharePoint contract management system like Dock 365's offers a built in reporting system so you can track your contracts. You'll be able to track individual contracts, contracts by type, and the status of your contract management process as a whole. This way, you won't be in the dark if there any issues that are happening with any of your contracts.
Microsoft Tool Integration
While a SharePoint contract management system is all you need to get started improving your contracting process, you may find you need other tools. This may be because it's what other companies are using or it's a legacy tool that you are phasing out. Either way, a SharePoint contract management system allows you to customize and integrate many of the Microsoft or third-party tools that you are using. This way, you don't have to switch back and forth between multiple platforms to manage your contracts.
Secure Storage
If there is one thing that Microsoft is good at, it's keeping data secure. By using a SharePoint contract management system, you'll gain access to all of the protections that Microsoft has to offer. You'll get multi-factor authentication, encrypted emails, data loss prevention, and a secure audit trail that you can use to track issues as needed. This is great for protecting your sensitive contract information and ensuring that none of your data is accessed by malicious third-parties.
Single Sign-On
One of the benefits of using a SharePoint contract management system is that it allows you to use your Office 365 login to access it. Instead of having to use multiple logins for multiple tools, you can use login for all of your tools. This helps you keep everything more secure. Instead of having to secure dozens of user accounts, your IT team will only have secure maybe a dozen.
Conclusion
Contract management is an important part of your company's processes. That's why it's vital that you make sure that you're doing everything you can to improve the process. A SharePoint contract management system is a simple, yet effective tool that can help you revolutionize your contract management process.
If you are interested in learning more about adopting a SharePoint contract management system, feel free to reach out to us and set up a demo. One of our team would love to walk you through how Dock 365's SharePoint contract management system can benefit you.
