Contract activity is an essential business aspect that requires proper management during the complete cycle. SAP Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) service is a practical and systematic way to manage the entire contract lifecycle right from initial stage, through award, agreement and renewal (if required). A few advantages of using CLM for your business includes simplifying sourcing and procurement processes, accelerate compliance with negotiated terms, and enhance competitive advantage.
Below listed are a few reasons why businesses find it difficult to manage contracts –

• Contracts management take significant time to copy, file and store which businesses fail to give and thus the process becomes difficult for them.
• There’s no streamlined process to keep a track of price and payments which creates revenue loopholes.
• Lot of time consumption in approval process from various ends can put a wrong impression on the customers and can also make you less valuable in their eyes
• If working without a proper CLM software, split management can result in incorrect and incomplete information or even overlook policy compliance

Choosing SAP CLM can be very helpful in overcoming all the problems that you might face and can also be helpful in improving cost savings and efficiency of your business. Having proper understanding and automating CLM minimises organisational liability and increases compliance with legal requirements.

Benefits of Using CLM (contract lifecycle management) for your business

Here are certain ways through which you can understand the use of automation software and how it can benefit your business with contract lifecycle management (CLM):

1. Standardized and managed process right from start to end

You need to first properly understand how the complete process of customer lifecycle management works. We can take an example of following steps that a CLM could involve:

• The first step is ‘generating a quote’ with the help of CRM (Customer Relationship Management system) that you might be using.
• Next, you will be sending over an e-sign document to bind the contract.
• Further, you might have to carry out the operation of making the sale and supplying the product
• Once all this is done, you will store your contract in a database
• And at the last, you will book the contract using Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and keep track of your contracts from there.

CLM, instead streamlines all contracts based on the business’s operations thus helping you in managing multiple applications like separate CRM and ERP software from the same place. By doing this, you will be able to manage all steps of all contracts in one single program, where the collaborating with your partner or client becomes faster and you can also easily manage and track different tasks.

CLM minimises your chances of missing any deadlines and also provides access to required information from any part of the process just with a few clicks.

2. Minimises the requirement and dependency of manual tasks

Contract Lifecycle management is the new generation, smart software with the capability to deal with contract’s front end and back end experience without any requirement of creating custom code. The standard businesses today use a dedicated CRM software for customer relations, and an ERP software for doing the booking. However, they carry out the steps in between manually.

CLM is the best solution to automate the complete manual process and streamline it in the following ways:

• An auto-generated contract sent to the customer to sign based on the quote that has been selected
• Approval and renewal notifications are sent to the appropriate people and applications in charge of moving the contract along once the task is complete
• Contract is automatically updated and stored in the database once it has been signed by the customer.

When you choose to use CLM, you make sure that you are not missing any important steps in your contract’s lifecycle with the freedom of running through the complete sales process without worrying about completing and focusing on manual tasks.

3. Automate everything between and after first and last step of the contract

The above two steps clearly signify how CLM can imitate the contract procedure and manage it smartly for you. Though, these steps are covering up the entire process of managing a contract, there are many businesses that need to be smart enough while taking care of a few little details that they might come across before and after the first and the last step of the contract.

This can be better explained with the help of an example in which, when you are sending a quote to you customer, then first you will have to go through your business’s pricing module to understand it and find out in which category your customer’s profile fits perfectly. You will also look for the discounts that your customer might be eligible for. Similarly, while finishing up the contract, there are some formalities that you might need to finish.

Once you choose CLM software for this, it will automatically take care of the all the details that require attention right before you start the contract and after the deal is done. Irrespective of what platform these details function in, CLM software can easily access them from anywhere. For example, if after the booking is done and contract is signed and now you need to activate a special benefit plan, CLM does it for you automatically.

4. Streamlined Process of Personalizing Contracts

When it is about details, we have to understand that contracts are the strong connection that two parties share with each other and it should be feasible enough for both the parties to remain updated and navigate through it. A streamlined process to personalize contracts assure that the both you and your customer have accurate and up-to-date info and neither you nor your customer is wasting time during negotiations.

Once you start using CLM, it takes all the responsibility of creating and managing numerous drafts of your contract. It accesses and edit the necessary information whenever you need. Contract Lifecycle management software along with easy tracking options also offers advantages like:

Transparency : When using CLM, you don’t have to worry about where and by whom the contract has been drafted. The details of the contract will always remain easy to track so there is no pressure on manager of going back and forth to manage the contract.

Effectiveness : Using CLM increases the efficiency as you and your customer will get alert notification about the latest drafts that are being used so that both the parties are not wasting time on the incorrect draft.

Accuracy : Stay more accurate as any manual or automatic change is always is being tracked, documented and automatically stored along with all the previous version.

5. Measure and stay updated about the Success of your contract

SAP CLM that you can use for the Contract Lifecycle management of your business comes with an analytics tool which will help you in having a 360-degree view of your success. It is very important to keep a track of how your contract is moving and how is the progress and this can be easily done with the help of SAP CLM Software. Here are a few ways how CLM software with the help of already installed analytical tool can help you in managing and tracking the whole process of contract signing or renewing:

• The software can easily find out steps in the process that are taking too long for the approval and get them wrapped up quickly.
• You can also check for step that require permanent changes in a pricing model.
• You can also remain updated about any change that customer might want to make in the e-sign document that needs your attention.

The CLM software keeps you ahead in the race so that there is no delay from your end when it comes to signing the agreements of making very important changes in contract’s lifecycle early on. This makes it easy to verify whether or not that particular contract is helping your business to reach the planned goal. By this it will be easy for you to determine if there is any serious change that you have to make in the process or even you have to continue working on the project. This is very helpful at the time when your business is dealing with a large number of complicated contracts.

Reasons to Implement Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) Software for your Business

1. Saves money and Time : When you choose good CLM, there are less chances that your business will have to deal with issues like penalties for non-compliance, missing important opportunities from special terms and rebates, missed payments or other payment errors, incurring fees and other penalties. This all is handled in the right manner because of good contract administration thus saving a lot of money and valuable time for you. CLM helps in simplifying processes in the contract administration and thus saves a lot of time and cost.

2. Prevent any legal process from contract non-compliance : There are many contracts that deal with a major of compliance. If contractual commitments remain incomplete, the potential for a legal action can be higher. A good CLM software prevents you from any such situation.

3. Deliver best to your customers : Being a business, what else would you need than fulfilling and exceeding your customer demands and expectations. This is only possible through a planned contract performance that can enhance any organization’s value and lead to better customer relationship.

4. Justifies the difference between the functionalities of contract managers contract administrators : The Contract managers and contracts administrators are different and are assigned to do different tasks. CLM software helps in letting them do their tasks the best, thus saving time and it also avoids any confusion that might occur.

How Acuiti Labs can help?

From contract drafting, it’s management, to its completion, SAP CLM software that we provide at Acuiti Labs is capable of supporting businesses to simplify their entire process of Contract Lifecycle. So, choose SAP CLM (Contract Lifecycle Management) for your business today and see how it plays an important role in closing deals faster and growing your business. Contact us for more details about CLM and Acuiti Labs.