Over my many years of working with business and in my own, few have a good handle at all on Contracts and certainly don’t understand the effect it has on sales.
- 81% of companies say productivity would improve with better process, skills, or competency training (source).
I am quite surprised at how many organisation have not engaged with Contract Lifecycle Management.
This is so important that we are running a short 30 minute Webinar at 11AM on October 27th, 2022. (AEST)
So why consider CLM now?
Sometimes I see this as an intersecting of events…
- Recognition of the need starts bubbling to the surface
- Complexity of solutions become easier to implement and operate
- Cost of running comes down to a level for easy decision
In whatever area – when all these three come together we see a high adoption rate.
The Benefits of Contract Lifecycle Management for Sales Teams
A sales team is only as good as its contract management process. In order to be efficient and effective, a sales team needs to have a system in place for managing the entire lifecycle of a contract, from creation to execution to renewal. This system is called contract lifecycle management (CLM).
Let us ask just a few questions…
- Can you easily report how many contracts you have that are currently active company wide??
- This covers not only customers but also suppliers, contractors, and government panels or similar.
- Are you able to get visibility of what your current obligations are for all contracts?
- A simple example; how many NDA’s have you signed and what is their current state?
- Do your team routinely copy an existing contract for a new customer & edit to suit?
- Do you have a workflow for approvals? Is it embedded as a system?
I could go on, but these are just a few things that I see constantly slowing up the sales process and bogging down your sales team.
CLM software helps sales teams automate and streamline the contract management process, saving time and money. In this blog post, we’ll look at some of the benefits of CLM for sales teams.
Improved Visibility Into the Contract Lifecycle
With CLM, all contracts are stored in a central repository. This gives sales teams increased visibility into the status of each contract and allows them to see where each contract is in the lifecycle at a glance.
In addition, CLM software provides alerts and notifications that let sales teams know when a contract is due for renewal or needs to be reviewed. This way, they can proactively manage their contracts and avoid surprises down the road.
Now I hear some saying they have a place in their CRM or PSA or similar for storing contracts.
The MAJOR difference is that a CLM is driven from the legal commitment perspective and does a whole range of things that other record keeping areas do not. This is not to say that you would not for example record contract details into a CRM or PSA; but that the “centre of truth” for all legal docs sits with your CLM and where required information is also populated in other systems.
Increased Efficiency and Productivity
CLM software automates many of the tasks involved in contract management, such as creating contracts from templates, routing contracts for approval, and storing signed contracts. This frees up sales teams to focus on more strategic tasks, such as developing relationships with clients and prospects.
In addition, CLM software makes it easy to find the information you need when you need it. For example, you can easily search for all contracts that are due for renewal in the next 30 days. This can help you prioritize your work and make sure that nothing falls through the cracks.
More importantly you can record obligations with timeline for the life of the contract and be alerted as they come due. Could be a payment milestone or a reporting milestone.
Improved Customer Satisfaction
Happy customers are essential for any business. One of the ways that sales teams can improve customer satisfaction is by ensuring that contracts are executed flawlessly. With CLM, all stakeholders have visibility into the execution of a contract, so everyone knows what needs to be done and when it needs to be done. This increases transparency and accountability, which leads to improved customer satisfaction and reduced time elapsed or spent.
Conclusion:
Contract lifecycle management is an essential tool for sales teams. It helps them be more efficient and effective by automating repetitive tasks, improving visibility into the contract lifecycle, and increasing transparency and accountability. If you’re not using CLM software already, now is the time to start reaping its benefits!