Enterprise Contract Lifecycle Management Software: A Starter Guide

Enterprise contract lifecycle management (CLM) software is a phenomenal tool for comprehensive, streamlined contract lifecycle management. A CLM solution built for enterprises centralizes a company’s legal agreements into one location that automates processes, creating an environment for both clear communication and productive collaboration.

In this manner, enterprise contract lifecycle management software optimizes contract reviews, approvals, negotiations, and execution – resulting in faster contract lifecycle times. A digital approach to contract lifecycle management allows you to locate and retrieve your contracts and clauses within seconds, an additional productive advantage.

Content-

• Functions of Enterprise Contract Lifecycle Management Software
• Which Organizations Would Benefit From Enterprise Contract Lifecycle Management Software?
  1. Organizations With a Moderate-to-Large Headcount
  2. Organizations With Several Departments
  3. Organizations With Strict Compliance Policies
• Advantages of Enterprise Contract Lifecycle Management Software
  1. Faster Contract Authoring and Approvals
  2. Increased Visibility and Transparency
  3. Support for Procurement and Supply Chain Monitoring
  4. Maximize Overall Value
  5. Manage Risk
  6. Improve Auditing
  7. Boost Proactivity with Alerts
• Enterprise Contract Lifecycle Management Software In Review
• Conclusion

Functions of Enterprise Contract Lifecycle Management Software

With an enterprise contract lifecycle management software like the Dock 365 Contract Management System (CMS), you can do the following:

• Leverage key contract data and insights from your proactive dashboard to generate reports, monitor performance, and ensure that your contractual obligations are being fulfilled
• Mitigate risk by analyzing your clauses to confirm they contain the most current legal language and are compliant to organizational standards
• Systematize your contract authoring process with preapproved contract templates and clauses
• Automate the entirety of your contract lifecycles with flexible, customizable contract workflows
• Utilize cloud-based storage to secure all of your company’s data and to keep your employees working on the most current iterations of your contracts and documents

Which Organizations Would Benefit From Enterprise Contract Lifecycle Management Software?

There are three types of organizations that we recommend to use enterprise contract lifecycle management software:

1. Organizations With a Moderate-to-Large Headcount

Overseeing contracts in moderate-to-large organizations can prove to have its challenges. An enterprise contract lifecycle management software solution can help these organizations work through their contracts swiftly and accurately. Traditional, manual contract management systems do not have all of the capabilities of an enterprise-built, digital system, which can lead to increased risk and inefficiencies.

2. Organizations With Several Departments

If your organization has several departments or offices, communicating and collaborating on your contracts can be a disjointed and troublesome process full of miscommunication. Don’t complicate contracts when you don’t have to – centralize your contracting processes with enterprise contract lifecycle management software so your employees can easily coordinate on contracts spanning organization-wide.

3. Organizations With Strict Compliance Policies

Enterprise contract lifecycle management software is perfect for organizations that work under high restrictions and rigid compliance policies. If your enterprise currently uses a manual system to manage your contracts, you are bound to run into human error, discrepancies, and compliance issues that could ultimately cost your company lots of money. Instead, it’s a wise choice to protect your company with enterprise contract lifecycle management software that will alert you when certain compliance issues occur. Enabling specific controls in your contract management system to protect your confidential data is star feature of enterprise contract lifecycle management software that will help secure and protect your organization.

Advantages of Enterprise Contract Lifecycle Management Software

You can solve many issues existing in your current contracting processes by leveraging enterprise contract lifecycle management software. There are so many incredible advantages offered by a CLM software solution built for enterprises, so let’s take a look at some of them below:

Faster Contract Authoring and Approvals

With flexible, automated contract workflows, you will speed-up contract reviews, authoring, and approvals that will increase your contracting efficiency. This standardization provided by contract automation not only mitigates risk, but also reduces contract lifecycle times – meaning you can develop and execute more contracts and maximize your ROI.

Increased Visibility and Transparency

A centralized, cloud-based contract repository will serve as the single source of truth and only platform that your contracts and sensitive data are stored in. In this way, you will increase compliance and standardize your processes across your departments which leads to improved collaboration and communication.

Support for Procurement and Supply Chain Monitoring

An enterprise contract lifecycle management system will help support your procurement operations and will help you monitor your supply chain. Procurement can be expedited with all of the automated capabilities provided by a CLM software solution. Oversee spending, gather data, and support commercial relationships with your enterprise contract lifecycle management software. Data analytics additionally allow you to track your supply chains and monitor contractual terms throughout a contract’s lifecycle.

Maximize Overall Value

A fast, secure, and optimized contract lifecycle management process means more value. An enterprise contract lifecycle management software solution allows you to accurately measure the progress and performance of your organization’s contracts at any time. Contract automation allows you to reduce manual labor in several key areas of the contract lifecycle so you can allocate time, money, and resources strategically in your system.

Manage Risk

If your enterprise currently uses a manual approach to contract management, you certainly are leaving your organization highly susceptible to many risks. Because enterprise contract lifecycle management software automates several processes within the stages of the contract lifecycle, you inherently mitigate risk by standardizing the process and associated tasks that you send your contracts through. In addition, your centralized repository securely stores your contracts and is the one place you resort to to locate and manage your data. Automated notifications also mitigate risk by keeping employees aware of upcoming contract expiration and auto renewal dates so you can ensure that only the most favorable contracts are renewed.

Improve Auditing

In your centralized contract repository, you can enable document monitoring features and conduct comprehensive reviews of the entire history of a given contract, allowing you to have a clearer picture of compliance over your contracts. Leveraging audit trails is simple with enterprise contract lifecycle management software, giving you the ability to assess where problem areas occur so you can save your company from potential legal issues and noncompliance. Audit trails are an amazing feature that allow you to collect data instantly so you can make well-informed decisions for the betterment of your organization.

Boost Proactivity with Alerts

Configure alerts in your enterprise contract lifecycle management software to oversee automated contract renewal dates, contract expiration dates, deadlines, obligations, and other key milestones. This way, you can flag specific items and assign them automated alerts to trigger off and be sent to specific contract stakeholders or employees in select departments of your organization. Your interactive contract management dashboard provides key insights and instant visibility of all key dates and deadlines.

Enterprise Contract Lifecycle Management Software In Review

Enterprise contract lifecycle management software is one of the best investments that an enterprise-level organization can make. While you might already use a basic contract lifecycle management solution, an enterprise contract lifecycle management software system will offer more robust features equipped for the challenges and demands that your enterprise may face when managing contracts.

To illustrate, an enterprise contract lifecycle management solution provides a centralized platform that will give your contract managers and stakeholders an efficient place to track, oversee, and collaborate on contracts throughout the entirety of their lifecycles. A disjointed, manual contracting approach will only increase risk potential, delays, and miscommunication – leading to poor results and a decrease in the client or vendor experience.

A comprehensive enterprise contract lifecycle management software solution is best suited for organizations that regularly send their contracts through several phases of review and signing. Such software will also allow your enterprise to leverage advanced search and filtering features, a cloud-secure contract repository, auditing and monitoring tools, obligations tracking, and other star capabilities to ensure the most collaborative and productive contract lifecycle management experience. If your enterprise falls within an industry with strict regulations and policies (i.e., finance, healthcare, food production, transportation, etc.), an enterprise contract lifecycle management software system can safeguard your organization from detrimental noncompliance penalties and give you the ability to develop specific risk mitigation tactics.

Conclusion

Optimize contract management for your enterprise by leveraging the best contract lifecycle management software available. With enterprise contract lifecycle management software, you can increase productivity, efficiency, and results while mitigating risk and noncompliance errors. Develop the most powerful and streamlined approach to contract lifecycle management today.

The Dock 365 Contract Management System offers a user-friendly and intelligent approach to managing your enterprise-level organization’s contracts by leveraging your Microsoft 365 and SharePoint infrastructure. Both Microsoft 365 and SharePoint function as the platform for your contract lifecycle management system. Dock’s productivity-driven, efficient, and powerful contract lifecycle management system provides several capabilities and integrations that increase collaboration, communication, and results. Take your contract management to the next level with Dock.

Ready to get started?

Learn more about our Dock 365 Contract Management System here.

Learn more about Contract Lifecyle Management (CLM) Software here.

For more information, we welcome you to schedule a free demo with us today.