Contracts are critical business assets. The importance of an effective contract management system cannot be overstated, as poor contract management can quickly undermine even the strongest organization.
Spanning three key dimensions of the enterprise, contracts:
- Govern every dollar that goes in and out of an organization. Given this critical function, Gartner, in their Market Guide for Contract Life Cycle Management, states that a contract lifecycle management (CLM) solution is quickly changing from “nice to have” to “need to have.”
- Are the keeper of all commercial commitments, allowing users to monitor risk and track entitlements and obligations.
- Impact all facets of the enterprise, including procurement, sales, intellectual property, sourcing and non-disclosure agreements.
With contracts at the center of every commercial relationship—including with customers and suppliers—they become the means by which businesses are able to manage risk, ensure compliance, and build long-term relationships that create a strategic advantage. In order to survive in today’s highly competitive and regulated global markets, organizations must become more efficient.
Contract management is key to that transformation.
Key Stakeholders in the C-Suite
Each stakeholder in the C-suite, from the CFO to the head of sales, has a unique set of requirements for contract management. A strength of the Icertis Contract Management (ICM) platform is that it is enterprise-wide—designed from the ground up to be easy, intelligent, and flexible enough to meet the needs of every department:
CFO. Many of today’s CFOs are responsible for managing enterprise-wide risk as well as keeping an eye on operational costs. With regards to contract management, their goal is to reduce costs while without increasing financial liabilities and compliance exposure.
- The ICM platform reduces labor costs by processing contracts faster and more efficiently while significantly reducing contractual risk. It helps the CFO make timely, informed decisions with intelligent analytics, and allows for full compliance with all accounting standards.
CLO/General Counsel. There are unprecedented demands on corporate legal teams, who are asked to reconcile, negotiate and approve contracts in record time. They want software that will deliver on its promises.
- The ICM platform helps legal departments work faster and more efficiently, providing them with the visibility and insight to better manage risk and enforce compliance across an entire portfolio of contracts.
CPO. CPOs are tasked with maintaining a healthy supply chain. Tools that improve workflow and help streamline the purchasing process without compromising quality are of utmost importance to them.
- The ICM platform allows procurement professionals to automate supplier validation; monitor contracting speed and efficiency; and manage an international supply chain with multilingual support and easily customizable variations in workflow.
Head of Sales. Delayed deals can lead to lost business, and maverick contracts can expose the company to risk, slow down the negotiation process, and increase costs.
- The ICM platform helps sales professionals reduce lead-to-contracting cycle time by more than 60 percent, improve contract quality and increase customer satisfaction.
CIO/CTO. Technology professionals are interested in long-term advantage, but are often under intense pressure to produce short-term results. Systems with a lengthy deployment cycle or those that don’t leverage existing IT investments are a headache they don’t need.
- The ICM platform allows technology professionals to deploy a secure, cloud-based solution in weeks, not months. Its capabilities result in lower training costs and reduced support issues, and it easily integrates into major ERP, sourcing, procurement, sales, and document management systems.
To learn more about how an enterprise contract management system benefits all the stakeholders in an organization, download the whitepaper: Selling Enterprise Contract Management Internally.
