CobbleStone Software was approached by one of the leading airplane manufacturers, referred to as Company B (for confidentiality purposes), to help them better manage their contract compliance. The worldwide, multi-billion-dollar company has been managing contracts for decades, but their size, number of contracts, and contract complexity called for a modern contract management software solution.
(This post was originally published April 24, 2017. Updated May 29, 2018)
Managing contract compliance can be tough. It becomes even more difficult when important terms and clauses are buried deep within a contract. Times that by the thousands of contracts a company will manage and you can find yourself more frustrated than ever. Missing compliance can cost an organization much more than hefty fees and fines. Reputations could tarnish and deals could go down the drain. Your organization could be playing catch up for a while. Being able to meet compliance becomes a top priority. It becomes easier with the right contract management software in place.
Contract management software is a must for many different industries. Before the development of contract management software systems, everything was done manually. This obviously had its drawbacks. Contract managers would be forced to store every contract into filing cabinets. Now, if there were just a few contracts this may have not been a major deal. However, most organizations deal with thousands of various contracts, making manual recordkeeping extremely difficult. Keeping all of these contracts in filing cabinets or boxes increased the chance of a lost file and, at best, reduced productivity as employees have to take the time to locate the contracts they need.
Institutions of higher education use contracts for many purposes; whether ensuring the delivery of products and services, or fulfilling student, public, or organizational objectives, colleges and universities have a variety of instances where contracts must be utilized. Accordingly, with the overwhelming amount of contracts that these institutions use, it would be beneficial and more efficient for the institution to use contract management software. The benefits of using contract management software are abundant in higher education, but a few key benefits can be highlighted below.
The Physician Payments Sunshine Act was passed by the United States in 2010 in an effort to increase the transparency of the fiscal relationships of drug manufacturers, medical device producers, and biological and medical supplies companies with health care providers. The institution of the Sunshine Act demanded pharmaceutical organizations with relationships to Medicare, Medicaid, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to collect and track data relating to their agreements with entities such as physicians and teaching hospitals.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is great if you don’t work in government and believe that, as a citizen, you should be entitled to knowledge of your government’s actions. On the other hand, if you are a government contract administrator, complying with FOIA can be a time consuming process. Especially if you are responsible for tracking the seemingly never ending supply of public records or determining if a contract record is, or is not, exempt to FOIA.
Oftentimes, large companies in highly-regulated industries such as healthcare organizations and public (government) agencies have strict guidelines that they are obligated to follow in order to monitor their contracts for compliance. Some of these include:
How can we make it easier for contract professionals, such as corporate attorneys, paralegals, contract administrators, controllers, and managers (and the like) to assert that they have the appropriate contract review processes in place that comply with state, federal, corporate, and other regulations?
Cyber-security has become a huge concern for businesses today. More and more organizations are falling victim to cyber-attacks due to improper handling and storage of sensitive data as well as lower security precautions. Our modern dependence on the convenience and connectedness that technology allows has made organizations more vulnerable to security risks. These threats have become so widespread that President Obama issued an executive order earlier this year mandating stricter cyber-security regulations and imposing stricter sanctions on organizations that engage in cyber-attacks that threaten national security and infrastructure.
What does this mean for your organization? Businesses are keepers of sensitive and valuable information, and it is our responsibility to properly protect that information from cyber-attacks. Here are a few tips to help protect your organization from possible threats.
