Contract management software can benefit any organisation that manages contracts or agreements. Unsurprisingly many enterprises are deterred by the cost of intelligent software. Budgets are a factor in all business decisions, but sometimes we have to speculate to accumulate. Low-cost contract management comes at a higher price.
Generally speaking, low cost contract management takes two forms: manual contract management and low cost contract management software.
Manual contract management
This is the manual process of document management that uses Word, Excel, email, and a file storage system. While this traditional solution may provide some level of control over contracts, it presents costly challenges around visibility, security, productivity, compliance and accountability. Ultimately, manual contract management can’t support the full contract lifecycle.
Low cost contract management software
At a base level, contract management software should offer a secure repository, searching, reporting, and alerts. The undoubted benefits include better organisation, centralised records and data protection. However, this type of solution doesn’t typically support the full contract lifecycle, and can prove ineffective for organisations requiring a user-friendly, configurable solution, that can evolve with their changing processes and growing business.
Reason being, low cost contract management software largely equals low quality. It may present challenges with limited features and configurability, inadequate document storage capacity, inflexible permissions and a finite number of users.
Over time, low-cost contract management software will ultimately cost more when it fails to fully support processes, lacks the flexibility to scale with your organisation, is difficult to adapt, and doesn’t have the ease, automation, visibility and predictability you need to maximise the value of your contracts.
Take the long view
We know, that when it comes to contract management software, you have a lot of different options to consider. You should invest in contract management software that improves your processes, reduces your costs, minimises your risk and saves you time.
Advanced contract management software gives you data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), to help your enterprise move beyond drafting, negotiating, approving and signing on someone else’s time frame.
Leading contract management software, such as Contract Insight, offers advanced features to streamline the whole contract management process.
Your initial investment in high-quality, intelligent contract management software may be higher, but the long-term rewards are undeniable. The low-cost approach to contract management costs much more in the long run.
Making the case for contract management software
An intelligent contract management platform gives you first-hand experience of:
• drafting and storing documents easily and securely
• managing more contracts in less time
• mitigating risk
• improving collaboration, communication, and negotiation
• importing existing contracts for automation and insights
• taking control of renewals and expiry dates
• using analytics and AI to make better decisions and build better relationships
All of the above can help you justify the investment to stakeholders – the software makes it easy for them to see the value of transforming your current contract management, against an inefficient, error-prone, disorganised, and risky contract management strategy.
Four ways to identify the value of intelligent contract management software
1. Review contracts across your entire organisation to identify the impact across all departments
2. Identify blind spots around the total value of contracts and contract status
3. Quantify the financial impact of your current management process based on lost contracts, missed renewals and expiration dates, lost suppliers missed pricing and negotiating opportunities, and compliance or regulatory issues.
4. Show the savings you make by using advanced contract management software that will be easy to adopt, is user-friendly, is fully configurable, and easily scalable for the future.
Did you know?
Intelligent contract management software can help organisations reduce contract management expenses up to 50%.
A low-cost approach to contract management comes at a high price that is simply not worth the expense, lost opportunity, and potential risk. To see how advanced contract management software can help your organisation and how affordable it can be, call 0800 6250 025 to request a free demo of Contract Insight from Four Business Solutions today.