INSIGHT: Work Smarter With the Right Contract Management Software

Stephen Hawking could intelligently theorize about ominous black holes and far-away galaxies. But not without powerful telescopes and other equipment.

Hawking needed the expansive vision and acute perceptiveness only the right tools could provide.

So do you.

Contract lawyers explore bodies of contracts instead of celestial bodies. But you still need to understand many hidden, interrelated elements within an ever-expanding digital universe of contracts. Success requires using the right advanced technologies to detect and learn about them.

Here are five ways contract management software (CMS) improves clarity, efficiency and scalability while offering the continued improvement lawyers need to conquer the final frontier of contract management.

1. Establish a Single Line of Collaborative Communication

Lawyers need input from other professionals to complement our expertise. Outside counsel and team members from sales, financial and other departments provide up-to-date information and advice more efficiently using CMS as a “home base” for collaboration. Then, like a centralized headquarters, all relevant information is available in one place.

CMS is a bridge that links all stakeholders, including third parties, through a single communication channel. For example, CMS streamlines negotiations by providing one version of a contract for simultaneous review and revision by all parties.

Automation and intelligent workflows move work forward smoothly within a CMS framework. As a result, you’re empowered with greater knowledge and a 360-degree view of your contract universe.

2. Scale Your Contract Management to Support Growing Business Relationships

A cloud-based CMS is an “always on” virtual workplace ideally suited for scaling contracting capabilities. At a practical level, automating menial, repetitive tasks increases overall efficiency. Using CMS to track factors such as obligations and key dates improves transparency. A combination of AI techniques helps you solve arising issues and identify opportunities manual review often misses.

At a relationship level, CMS delivers the expediency required to support positive interactions with high-caliber business partners. Business leaders today expect top lawyers to be working with the wisdom and insight a CMS platform delivers. They want to work with professionals who can knock fastballs out of the park; not be held back by minor league players who still struggle to tee-up the ball.

3. Make Sense of the Glut of Information

The ability to handle growing amounts of complex information is increasingly a skill that differentiates good lawyers and law firms from great ones. Trying to deal with the growth in contract volume and complexity with basic technology is like trying to fly to the moon in a hang glider.

Organizing contracts within the security of CMS establishes fast, easy access to structured business data. For example, you can quickly identify which contracts new regulations affect. Robust search capabilities make it much easier to identify troubling language and assess potential risks. AI tools bring issues to your attention early during review and automatically flag points for follow-up throughout a contract’s lifecycle.

4. Use Contract Templates to Reduce Direct Lawyer Involvement

We, lawyers, are married to the copy-and-pasted templates we’ve manually constructed over time. We save the clauses and phrases that seem most effective. In truth, we’ve got no proof that our preferred language performs well. And no one else can make sense of our template system.

CMS allows businesses to collect real data on factors like which clauses are often re-negotiated. Once the best-performing language is identified, they can stock a template library with optimized clauses and complete standard contracts. Business leaders can freely use them to move forward independently on less complicated deals. And lawyers spend time shepherding only the highest risk and most complex contracts through to completion, compounding the benefits of their efforts.

5. Create a Cycle of Continuous Operational Improvement

CMS platforms offer many pathways to operational improvement. A few include:

• Significantly reduced contract negotiation times
• Fewer contracting disputes
• Less potential for performance failures due to over-commitment
• Expanded analytics with data made available on more KPIs and BI factors

Reliable analytics also help businesses increase the intrinsic value of their contracts over time. With all their contracts in one platform and using optimized language, data integrity improves. This feeds a cycle of continual improvement in which the discovery of critical insights help companies make more improvements going forward.

Perform Epic Work With Contract Management Software

Your client’s operational success correlates to the health of the contracts that underpin its operations. But you cannot perform epic work with primitive tools. Use CMS to free yourself from slavish tasks and devote more time to proactively driving value in your work. Get better predictive insight and a much more precise understanding of your contracting universe. It’s the only way to discover more opportunities to not only save money and time, but continually generate real and lasting value.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. or its owners.

Author Information

Olga V. Mack is the CEO of Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. She focuses on improving and shaping the future of law, having led from the front lines for decades as an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup adviser, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur.