For years, businesses have relied on contracts to set expectations between the organization and a party. Contracts legally bind employees and constituents to a series of obligations and boundaries. Operating without contracts is not an option for businesses, and neither is failing to effectively create and manage them. All businesses recognize the importance of having processes in place to handle their contracts, regardless of the size of their organization and overall number of contracts in place. To foster an environment of success, businesses need to properly communicate the expectations outlined in their contracts to help constituents fulfill their agreements. The future of a business’ relationship with a customer or partner is contingent on sound contract management processes, as they help shape their reputation and success.
Some businesses operating on an ineffective contract lifecycle management system are discovering the risks associated with it. Creating contracts requires getting the right parties involved through the drafting, review, and approval phases, which can be difficult using a poor system. The same applies to managing contracts, where signed documents need to be easily retrievable with notifications sent out in a timely manner. For example, legal and compliance departments are susceptible to accidentally neglecting an obligation, not delivering what was promised to a partner or customer, or overlooking a renewal or expiration date — all of which results in missed opportunities. These pain points are much more common than expected, and are magnified with a poor contract management system.
These inefficient and outdated contract management processes can hamper an organization’s to be regulatory compliant. Many of the established modes of modern business processes, including manual entry systems, paper-based systems, shared network drives, spreadsheet applications, and email, are not the best tools for contract lifecycle management. In fact, they undermine proper compliance efforts and can reduce stakeholder confidence.
The ConvergePoint Contract Management Add-In on Microsoft Office 365 enables businesses to use their existing SharePoint Online interface to streamline the creation and management efforts of all their organizational contracts. By leveraging the Office 365 and SharePoint Online ecosystem, the Add-In guides you through each step of the contract process and ensures you never miss an obligation, renewal date or deadline, thereby streamlining the full contract lifecycle..… Fill out the form to read the whole white paper