A huge challenge for the general counsel of any company is managing their contracts, obligations, and risks. Step one is to keep track of all the agreements and contract data for the organization. Surprisingly, even this first step is a challenge for most companies today. We estimate that between 55% – 65% of organizations still manage contracts manually. So, a major step forward in reducing risk for your team is to start by setting up a single contract repository for all agreement-related records.
CONTRACT REPOSITORY – WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Gartner estimates that 64% of litigation in state courts results from contract disputes. Given that your agreements are likely to be the biggest source of conflict with your business partners, customers, suppliers, and even employees – you need to keep them organized. A challenge for the general counsel is managing their contracts, obligations, and risks.
Now, take a moment to think about this. If a dispute emerged on an obscure contract that was signed three years ago, do you know exactly where to find it? Are you confident that you know exactly where to find any and all of your accords? For most general counsels, the answer is either ‘no’ or ‘I know where to find most of them/the important ones.’
Finding the ‘important ones’ is a great answer. That is, it is great when disputes emerge relating to the ‘important contracts.’ But, what happens when the contract is a facilities agreement, or a minor supplier agreement, or a marketing dispute. Have you accounted for all of these contracts, too? When a problem emerges, can you find any and all contracts at a moment’s notice? If the answer is yes – stop reading – you are doing well. For the rest of us, think about the potential risk impact of a critical case coming up … and you just CANNOT find the contract. Believe it or not, this is far more common than anyone would like to admit.
BASICS OF CONTRACT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
Having a contract repository is one of the basics of any contract management solution. In fact, it should be the starting point of the discussion. Every good contract lifecycle management (CLM) solution needs a robust contract repository.
The contract repository is exactly what it sounds like. In essence, it is the common area in which all agreements are stored. Naturally, these are stored in a robust cloud-based contract solution, like ContractPodAi on the Microsoft Azure system. Therefore, having all your agreements stored in one place gives you easy accessibility, makes them searchable, and associates all relevant documents to the accord. Above all, it allows you to do this from one easy-to-access location.
When looking for CLM software solutions, make sure the contract repository is capable of storing and searching through various related documents. It should store items such as:
- statement of work
- service level agreements
- bill of quantities
- related NDA’s A contract repository is one of the basics of any contract management solution.
- intellectual-property accords
- schedule of rates
- other obligations, outlines, and associated documents
CONTRACT REPOSITORY AS A SYSTEM OF RECORD (SOR)
Today’s companies often have 10,000 – 40,000 active contracts at any given moment. Volumes like these make manual contract management, untenable. You just cannot manage that many contracts effectively, with a spreadsheet, some hope, and a bit of duct tape!
Your legal team needs a contract database that helps save time and money… as well as ensuring every contract is quickly findable – and never, Never, NEVER lost!
Businesses today need a good end-to-end CLM that takes on the role of a contract SOR. It stores all agreements and related documents in one single virtual location and is accessible from any location on the web. Also, it gives you peace of mind. Ultimately, do you know where ALL your agreements are, on a moment’s notice? It is not a hard question. It should be an easy answer.
So, the next time that thought pops up as a question in your mind… your immediate answer should be YES – it’s on my CLM – ContractPodAi.
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