Do you need a Contract Lifecycle Management solution?

An organisation may understand the concepts and value of contract lifecycle management but remains unsure if there is a need for it at the present time. The following is a good general guideline and indicator of your organization's potential need for a contract lifecycle management solution.

If your answer "No" to any of the following questions, there is a high probability that a contract lifecycle management solution should be considered:

  • Are your organization's contracts routinely coordinated across different organizational units (departments/divisions)?
  • Can you effectively locate every contract within your organization?
  • Do you know the expiration dates of all your contracts?
  • Do you have mechanisms in place to alert appropriate levels of management for key contract dates?
  • Are you capturing all rebates and discounts in your purchase contracts?
  • Do all of your contracts go through a formal approval process before being executed/signed?
  • Are you able to ensure regulatory compliance with your contracts?
  • Do all your contracts comply with corporate policies?
  • Do you know immediately when a contract term has been achieved or violated?
  • Are your financial systems updated when a contractual risk event occurs?
  • Do you know if you are loosing money due to cost leakages in your procurement contracts?
  • Do you know how many contracts have cost penalties or potential legal liability and exposure to your organization?
  • Can you routinely and efficiently compare and analyze the performance of various contracts?
  • Can you quickly compare individually terms between all your contracts?
  • Can you efficiently analyze and compare contracts bt vendor and by product?
  • Do you use contracts as part of your strategic sourcing analyses?

If you answer "Yes" to any of the following questions, there is also a high probability that a contract lifecycle management solution should be considered:

  • Do you have evergreen contracts that renew before you have a chance to evaluate and negotiate new terms?
  • Are you paying unwarranted annual software maintenence fees?
  • Do you suspect that you are being overcharged by your suppliers?
  • Are you paying fees due to missing or late payments?
  • Have you neglected doing audits/assessments of your contracts because it is too time consuming?