Contract Management – It’s Personal (and should be)

After 10+ years of helping our clients with their contract management efforts it still amazes me how personal contract management is to each organization and each stakeholder. Even the term “contract management” is personal. It can mean notification reminders and reports, document management, asset management, metadata management (all the details about the contract), process management, vendor management, a combination of these concepts, or something entirely different.The bottom line is that people want “contract management” to solve something that is personal to them (regardless of the initial need).

For most people “something” usually starts with a big picture organizational mandate (we need to reduce operational spend by 10%, comply with a new regulation, or report details to a new boss).The message and need can be clear but the breakdown occurs when those responsible for doing the work are already stretched thin, don’t have the tools/processes, or can’t get the people within the organization to consistently respond to their requests. So what do people do? They personalize the initial mandate to make it work for them.

The reason for this blog is not to state the obvious. It is intended to get people thinking about what an ideal solution for their environment would look like before they start the vendor vetting process.  If you have a foggy idea of what you want then vendors will be driving your needs to what they do best.  Put in the time to whiteboard the picture of what will solve the initial mandate and help those doing the work.

Here are some non-industry specific  examples of the types of review and desired functionality:

1.  Types of Contract Review (who are the stakeholders and what benefits do they want)

• Legal Review
• Financial Review
• Risk/Compliance Review
• Needs/Requirements Review (operationally does this contract solve our needs)

2.  Objectives/Functionality

• Single shared repository with varied permissions
• Document version control, review tools, indexing and search capabilities, audit trails, collaboration, and the ability to create new contracts
• Document routing for approvals, review, comments, signature, and filing
• Metadata about each contract (extracting useful information from the legalese)
• Tracking and Email notifications
• Dashboards and reporting

Feel free to connect with Trident (tsteiner@www.trident-it.com or 608-276-1909) if you need help figuring out where to start or defining what you want.  There are lots of options available to you. Making it personal will produce your best results!