Contract Insights

Contract management is a multi-faceted process.  Without oversight over each stage in the life of a contract, your organization can suffer from process bottlenecks, missed contract obligations and tasks, wasted time, lawsuits, decreased revenue, and missed opportunities - to name a few.  Fortunately, you can increase your ROI by better understanding approaching contract management.  Here are the four phases of contract management and how to tackle them with contract management software.

Clause libraries have proven incredibly useful for advanced legal operations and contract lifecycle management – if appropriately implemented.  Unfortunately, your organization can mismanage your clause library with antiquated technology, manual clause tracking and clause storage, and the lack of an expeditious way to leverage clauses during contract authoring and contract negotiation.  Luckily, you can supercharge your clause library with user-friendly and robust contract management software.  Here's how.

2021 has arrived, and with it comes new innovations to your contract management software processes.  Keeping this in mind, we have outlined six critical contract management tools that your organization should equip itself with to stay ahead of future-minded contract management best practices in 2021 and beyond.

In order to get started with improving contract lifecycle management, there first needs to be an understanding of what exactly the contract lifecycle is - as well as how it progresses.  To that end, we have provided an illustration that shows the stages in the life of a contract - as well as descriptions that give more insight into how each stage involves and can be managed with contract management software!

The contract approval process can prove challenging for many contract management and contract administration professionals.  Without the proper contract lifecycle management tools in place, bottlenecks and human error can lead to longer contract lifecycle times. Delayed contract approvals may fail to meet business rules, business processes, and business and regulatory compliance standards - potentially leading to missed opportunities for time-sensitive pricing options and special terms.  The challenges and problems of inefficient contract administration are apparent, but what are the root causes of the issues with contract approvals?

Choosing a contract lifecycle management (CLM) software provider can be challenging, especially if you’ve never worked with CLM software and do not have anything to compare it to.  Fortunately, industry-leading contract management software analysts, including those from Forrester Research Inc., can communicate and showcase their findings - offering you expert advice.  Forrester recognizes CobbleStone® Software as a Leader in their report titled, “The Forrester Wave^TM: Contract Lifecycle Management For All Contracts, Q1 2021.”  CobbleStone Contract Insight® received a ranking among the top three CLM software providers in the Current Offering category within Forrester’s evaluation.  Read on to learn why CobbleStone was named a leader, according to Forrester’s expert analysts.

Companies of all sizes within both the public and private sectors often find themselves maneuvering multiple contracts at once - with said contracts progressing at various stages of the contract lifecycle.  As such, they must build an efficient, organized, and cost-effective contract lifecycle management process that helps with all stages of the contract lifecycle.  Read on to learn how to get started building a strong and centralized contract lifecycle process - as well as how this undertaking can be significantly simplified and improved with the right strategy, rather than the cheapest and most manual.

This blog post was updated on March 30th, 2021

Contract lifecycle management requires a thorough strategy, careful planning, and the right technology.  Without all three elements, managing contracts can not only be challenging for contract management, sourcing, procurement, vendor management, and legal professionals; it can prove difficult to maximize contract value.  Contracts require tremendous pre-award and post-award investment.  Without a suitable contract management system in place, you can find it difficult to maximize ROI.  Too many organizations are missing end-to-end contract management that provides a clearly defined process, actionable insights, and accountability - ultimately negatively impacting productivity, profitability, risk exposure, and compliance.  Read on to learn how you can master contract lifecycle management.