Whatever the nature of your business there is always demand or need to deal with multiple types of contracts for example Non -disclosure Agreements, Master Service Agreement, Service Level Agreements, Statements of Work, Change Requests, etc.

The three key factors that decide the level of complexity for the contact are;

1. Type of Contract.
2. Industry (Pharmaceutical, Manufacturing, Automobile, Retail, e-commerce  and others)
3. Size of Organization

The Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) tool helps to streamline and automate the contracting process that helps reduce risk and time consumed during the contracting lifecycle. It improves visibility and accuracy as well as provides better governance and control over the contracting process. A CLM tool makes it possible to track the process, know instantly who the owner of the task is and the time is taken for each contract stage

In any organization, there are many people that are not accustomed to using technology for their daily work. For them, adopting a process of digitalization may be difficult and challenging.

To gain maximum benefit from the tool, organizations need to communicate how the technology would simplify the process flow, saving people a lot of time, effort and pain, ultimately helping drive the business smoothly.

Here are the three challenges along with their solution that generally companies encounter when they start adopting the new CLM tool.

Challenge #1

Business users are uncomfortable adopting the digitalization of processes. Solution:

Solution: In this challenge, communication is the solution.

• Explain the purpose behind the digitalization and the immediate benefits that they can obtain by adopting the tool, e.g. instant reports, analytic dashboards, full-text contract search and all this with just a few clicks.
• Prepare the enablement plan, training and demo recording for CLM Process on the tool and make it easily accessible for them
• Allows users to start using the tool with simple and basic capability.

Challenge #2

Missing Legacy data information on the tool.

Solution: In this Challenge, the priority of process establishment is the solution.

• At any point in time when we start the process of digitalization, this is the most common challenge.
• We have to filter the information that is the minimum required in the tool to start the digitalization. E.g. to Start the CLM tool we need all customer, partner, and distributor information within the tool, so make that available on the tool before beginning to use the tool.

Challenge#3

Executed contracts are accessible for internal users across the organization, though

they do not use the tool.

Solution: In this challenge, establishing the integration between different systems is the solution.

• Though contract lifecycle is performed within the CLM tool the contracts need to be accessible to various end-users who may not have access to the CLM tool. For all such end-users, the contract should be made available at an external, global repository where it can be accessed by the concerned end user.
• Organization’s internal users also want the benefit of reports and dashboard which is available on the platform that also we have to make it available for them through integration.

Conclusion

CLM adoption will help you to accelerate your business. It means investing in contract management digitalization will transform your CLM Journey and can quicken cash flow for the organization. When users will receive sufficient training for new tools, they’ll be more likely to use them. This transformation will effectively drive results for your business.

Important Note: This article is originally published at Dipti Kalaria’s LinkedIn.