Contract Insights

Looking to elevate your productivity and value during contract management? Well, contract managers often find themselves juggling multiple responsibilities related to the contract lifecycle. Manually managing these responsibilities with outdated processes can lead to inefficiencies related to repetitive contract lifecycle tasks, confusing and disorganized contract storage, bottlenecked collaboration across teams, and more. But what if you had a configurable, tailored, and time-saving tool instead? To that end, here are three productivity hacks to help you stay efficient, organized, and ahead of the game.

Nearly every business relationship involves a contract. At the crux of every contract is back-and-forth negotiation and contract management. This chess-like undertaking requires purposeful and good-faith cooperation on both sides.

The cutthroat, 1980s Wall Street businessman approach of trying to steamroll one’s opponent into submission often depicted in movies does not reflect successful contract negotiation and contract management in real life. True contract negotiation requires active listening, considerate acknowledgment of both parties’ pain points, and the ability to forge a win-win agreement.

As such, here are 8 contract negotiation strategies to improve your contract negotiation and contract management processes.

Secure document storage can greatly benefit organizations of all sizes. From data breaches to unauthorized access, protecting sensitive information and making the most of documents has become increasingly difficult. However, modern secure document storage solutions are designed to tackle these challenges head-on. In this post, we'll explore three common issues organizations face with document storage - data security concerns, limited access, and disorganization - and how secure storage solutions are addressing them effectively.

Did you remember to read all of our blog posts from October? Don't worry; we have outlined each of them for you. Stay up-to-date with industry topics, real-world case studies, and contract management software and procurement best practices in November by reading the latest CobbleStone^® content.

The potential for contract risk is everywhere in the contract lifecycle...from missed deadlines to compliance issues and costly errors. Without a structured approach to managing contracts, organizations can quickly find themselves vulnerable to various risk variables that threaten financial stability, operational efficiency, and more. Fortunately, contract management software offers a myriad of tools to identify and mitigate these risks - keeping organizations on track and compliant. To that end, let's explore five common types of contract risk and how leading contract management software can help mitigate them - virtually ensuring smoother operations and peace of mind.

Contract management software is instrumental in automating the drafting, negotiation, execution, and oversight of contracts. Naturally, there are some solutions that are better fitting for your organization than others. Because of this, the chances are you may be struggling with an outdated system that can cause you to miss out on the full value of your contracts. If your current contract management solution is slowing you down, it may be time to switch. But how do you know when it's time to upgrade? Well, here are three key signs that it's time to consider a superior contract lifecycle management software solution.

Procurement and supply chain professionals deal with an extensive and increasingly complex network of suppliers. These individuals can struggle with the inefficiencies of manual processes when managing contracts and tracking supplier performance. The lack of process centralization makes it difficult to keep tabs on each supplier's risk profile, delivery timelines, and quality standards. With fragmented documents and tedious spreadsheets, supplier base data can be prone to errors - delaying decision-making and risking compliance issues.

Streamlining and automating these processes allows businesses to gain visibility, maintain high-quality standards, and foster supplier relationships for a healthier supplier management strategy. This ultimately supports smoother and more strategic supplier lifecycle management workflows. So, let’s fine-tune your supplier management strategy for centralization and success!

Conversations about artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in a business setting are important. According to a study performed by MIT Sloan Management Review, over 80% of organizations see advanced AI as a vehicle for strategic opportunity. Additionally, 85% of organizations view AI as a means for competitive business advantages.¹

This interest in – and implementation of – AI applies to legal professionals, in-house legal teams, and other contract managers as well. Manually managing and reviewing an ever-increasing number of contracts and legal documents of varying complexity is stressful and inefficient. But it does not have to be.

Organizations can improve contract review and contract automation with AI-powered contract management software.