Contract management (or contract lifecycle management (CLM)) software has many benefits for organisations. There are many good reasons why every organisation should be considering using contract management software. However, contract management software is not suitable for all types of contracts. And there is also no one size that fits all organisations. Selecting the right contract management software for your organisation depends on a number of factors and your specific requirements.
Selecting the right contract management software for your organisation can be a daunting task. If you start with a Google search you will quickly realise that there are literally hundreds of possibilities. You can easily spend days and days comparing them in the search to find the best one possible. For example, the PCMag and Capterra are comparison sites which are rather overwhelming.
Rather than looking for the best one, I would suggest looking for the one that appears most appropriate for your organisation (and its unique requirements). In addition to this, if you make the wrong choice you will learn a lot through the first choice that you can use in implementing use in your second choice.
It is better to make a choice than no choice at all.
Start by asking yourself some questions and trying to find the answers in as much detail as possible. Doing this before you start comparing contract management software will put you in a very strong position when you start evaluating the different features.
The questions you should be asking about contract lifecycle management (CLM)
- What outcomes or benefits are we seeking to achieve?
- What contracts do you want to manage?
- Who do we conclude contracts with? For example, employees, customers or suppliers.
- How many different types do you have? For example, do you have some that are high value and others that are low in value? Are they IT Contracts?
- How many of each type are there? For example, is there a high volume or a low-volume?
- How are your contracts currently structured? For example, do you have a master with orders or statements of work?
- Do you have a standard offering that you provide to many or do you have a bespoke offering that you tailor for each one of your customers?
- Do you want the software to draft the contracts or manage ones that are already drafted?
- Are your contracts open to negotiation and do they often get change significantly between drafting and signing?
- Do you want the software to help you get the contracts signed with an electronic signature?
- Do you want to manage legacy contracts?
- Do you want to manage the workflows related to contracts? For example, getting many people to approve it before it gets signed?
- Do you want to integrate the contract management software with other software (like a CRM, billing system or central document storage)?
- Do you want to be able to reuse data multiple times in many contracts? Is the same data often used in many contracts?
- Who will be drafting the contracts?
- Who will be drafting the templates?
- Can we improve the quality of our contract templates before we automate the drafting of instances using those templates?
- How much am I willing to spend on software?
How we can help you select contract management software
We can help you to choose the right contract management software for your specific organisation. We are independent advisors and do not receive commissions from any one of the vendor’s of contract management software. We are therefore able to give you an unbiased view and assist you in making the right decision.
We can help you find answers to the questions above and then we can guide you through the process of identifying the right fit.
