CMS Integrated Dynamics 365 For Buy-side And Sell-side Contracts

Automating and streamlining contract processes can do wonders for the efficiency of a company. For dynamic businesses, the contract lifecycle can be complex. They must generate legal documents with multiple stakeholders and purposes. Contract management software enables organizations to navigate through various stages of contracting.  

But often, the contracts serve different obligations and purposes. For instance, most businesses must manage buy-side and sell-side contracts. And the entities might find it hard to handle them from a single platform. Also, they have diverse teams to manage them, from procurement to sales teams. Having a centralized solution allows for the utilization of various processes to yield the same result. A CMS (Contract Management Software) integrated Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform provides tools to deal with all types of contracts. Let us get into the specifics of sell-side and buy-side contracts before discussing the advantages of an integrated system.  

What are buy-side contracts? 

As the name suggests, buy-side contracts deal with obtaining goods or services from suppliers or vendors for a cost, monetary or otherwise. The buy-side legal documents lay down the obligations and demands finalized between both parties. Procurement, vendor management, or outsourcing teams are most likely to handle buy-side contracts for an organization. They require immediate and easy access to legal agreements to negotiate the lowest cost for goods and services. The buy-side contracts are integral in maintaining contract performance, such as agreed delivery time and price. In the case of larger orders, companies may opt for a Request for Proposal (RFP) to assess potential suppliers.  

What are sell-side contracts? 

Sell-side contracts are legal agreements for the sale of products and services. Sales teams are most often involved in these contracts between buyers and sellers. They partake in negotiations and look for new businesses for their organization. Hence, the sales team requires quick access to contract templates and approval workflows. Apart from that, they also need to derive information from executed and current contracts to facilitate sales. The sales team needs to ensure that the organization is following the terms and conditions outlined in the sell-side contracts.  

What is the procedure for buy-side and sell-side contracts? 

Though they differ in obligations, the contracting process, for the most part, is relatively the same for sell-side and buy-side contracts. And an efficient CMS can support the entire lifecycle. While the stakeholders may vary, the contract request process is the same for both. The sales team deals with potential customers, and the procurement team handles suppliers.

The next step is to create legal agreements using pre-approved templates and terms kept in the repositories. It saves a tremendous amount of time and effort. After authoring, both parties negotiate the terms of the contracts. The procurement teams aim to reduce goods and services prices for buy-side contracts. The sales staff look for advantageous agreements to boost revenue. The contract approval workflow is consistent among both sell-side and buy-side contracts. The legal, financial, and business teams must approve both legal documents. They both follow identical compliance and renewal processes. But due to their differences, the organizations opt for separate operations for buy-side and sell-side contracts. Keep reading to find out how CMS integrated Dynamics 365 system can help with that.  

Why is integrating buy-side and sell-side contracts beneficial? 

Flourishing businesses deal with all types of contracts, from buy-side contracts to NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) and employee agreements. An organization’s efficiency increases when it can manage every aspect of the contractual operations from a single platform. It improves their performance in contract reporting, compliance, and storage. Some of the advantages of having a centralized system are: 

Data Sharing  

Any organization needs all the information it can get to make profitable decisions. With a centralized system for the contracting process, the company can share all the vital information in a single place. Easy access to customers, vendors, and contract data will empower teams to make informed choices throughout the contract lifecycle. It also streamlines the contract reporting process for comprehensive data. 

Enhance compliance governance  

It is easier for a company to maintain compliance when they have a holistic view of the entire contracting process. The legal and financial team can access all the executed contracts from a single platform to establish compliance.   

Financial merits  

First and foremost, implementing an integrated system can reduce unnecessary costs and training time. There is no need to adopt several software or tools to get things done. Moreover, a centralized system will lessen the workload of legal, finance, and management teams. When the sales and procurement teams have a clear view of the contracting process, they can better manage the overall expenditure. 

Better relationships 

Often, the supplier and customer lists for an organization may overlap. In such cases, a single system to handle both contracts might improve the third-party relationship. And with shared data, improved sales might trigger purchases or vice versa.   

What CMS integrated Dynamics 365 can do for buy-side and sell-side contracts?  

The goal of any contract management system is to optimize the contracting process. And consequently, it yields better results, reduced cost, and superior performance for the organization. While theoretically, this sounds splendid, most CLM systems fail to achieve the desired results. The contracting process is more intricate and may differ for sell-side and buy-side contracts. And standard CMS may not be able to keep up with it.  

But a CMS-integrated Dynamics 365 system offers the tools necessary to manage several types of contracts from within a single platform. Such as:   

Templates and clause library  

Whether on the buy or sell side, organizations need to author contracts. With a Microsoft Dynamics 365 integrated CMS system, organized will share a single archive for pre-approved templates and clauses for buy-side and sell-side contracts. Consequently, it will bring consistency to the overall contracting process. Especially for multi-lingual organizations handling business all over the world, uniformity in contracts will perpetuate reduced organizational risk. There will be less variation in legal documents produced by the sales and procurement team. The organization will experience increased compliance, performance, and efficiency. 

Customized workflows 

Both buy-side and sell-side contracts follow the same fundamental procedures for effective contract management. The CMS-integrated Dynamics 365 system comes with dynamic and customizable workflows. As a result, the full contracting and approval process will be visible to all chief departments inside a business. Also, the centralized system comes with notifications and reminders for renewals, expiry, and other key dates.  

Renewing a contract requires contract authoring and negotiations. The renewal process will go more smoothly if the organization has all the information available in a single place. Both sales and procurement teams will have it easy with the renewal of sell-side and buy-side contracts.  

Comprehensive Database  

In a CMS-integrated Dynamics 365 system, businesses can directly access data from sales and supplier databases. As a result, they can produce legal documents that are accurate and valuable with little effort. For both sell-side and buy-side contracts, the organization can immediately obtain all the necessary information from the integrated system. They can attain error-free data anytime without juggling between different platforms. It eliminates ambiguity or misinformation from the contracting process.  

Risk Management  

Risk management begins with contract authoring. Thanks to Microsoft Dynamics 365 integrated CMS system, businesses have access to many resources to create efficient and errorless contracts. Centralized repositories, pre-approved templates, clauses, and customer databases enable the sales and procurement team to produce compliant legal documents.   

Moreover, an integrated system for buy-side and sell-side contracts means improved visibility and workflows. Therefore, the organization can better mitigate risks by eliminating miscommunication and unnecessary delays. Businesses can monitor contract performance, compliance requirements, expiries, and deviations using the centralized platform. They can quickly identify minor mistakes or oversights with sophisticated workflows and tracking systems. 

Combined history

Both vendor and customer relationships are integral to the growth of a company. A CMS-integrated Dynamics 365 system offers accurate records of executed contracts, customer database, vendor history, contact lists, and more at a single platform. It means the organization has a plethora of information at its fingertips to enhance current and future partnerships. The sales and procurement team are empowered to provide quick resolutions to client and supplier needs. Moreover, the enterprise can utilize the information to assess the current market, future opportunities, and third-party risks. 

Bottom line

As you know, sell-side contracts carry out sales with the customers, while buy-side are for buying from suppliers. Although the two legal processes are different in their purpose and partakers, collaborating between the two can prove beneficial for any organization. Managing both contract types in one system improves profit and productivity. They can utilize the shared history and data to streamline the contracting process.  

Do not miss the opportunity to enhance your contract management process. Look at our live demo today to know all about CMS-integrated Dynamics 365 system.