Were you unable to attend our exclusive live session on best practices to unlock the contract potential at the ServiceNow Knowledge 2023 Event? Don't worry! Here's a recap and summary of what you missed.

In the ever-evolving world of business, the ability to manage contracts effectively has become crucial. With organizations dealing with hundreds to thousands of agreements, the management of contracts can become an overwhelming task, giving rise to numerous pain points. 

Current Contract Management Pain Points 

Every organization has a unique set of challenges when it comes to managing their contracts. Yet, there are a few common pain points that many companies grapple with: 

1. Lack of Centralized Access: Without a single, centralized system to access contract information, organizations may encounter delays, errors, and inefficiencies during the contract creation process. 

2. Scalability: Scaling existing processes across tens of thousands of agreements can turn into a nightmare, adding to the administrative burden and the risk of errors. 

3. Difficulties in Modifying Business Terms: The task of adding a new business term can be time-consuming and complex, particularly when contracts are scattered across various systems. 

4. Non-standardized Contract Templates: The lack of approval controls and standardized contract templates exposes organizations to increased business and regulatory risks. 

5. Challenges with Agreement Intake Process: Companies may struggle with managing their agreement request intake process, leading to disorganization and miscommunication. 

6. Data Integrity Issues: Maintaining data integrity across various systems is a common challenge that impacts relationships with customers and vendors. 

These challenges, if not addressed, can lead to contracting inefficiencies, high costs of maintaining legacy systems, and increased business and regulatory compliance risk. 

Facing Contract Management Challenges? AI Can Help Driving Contracting Excellence. Read More>>

Best Practices to Unlock Contract Potential 

To overcome these challenges and unlock the potential of your contracts, the following best practices can be adopted: 

Best Practice 1: Define Goals & Objectives 

Start by defining your contract management goals. Focusing on the following objectives can streamline your contract management process and drive efficiencies: 

1. Single Source of Truth: Aim to centralize your contracts and related data in a single, accessible location. 

2. Drastic Efficiency Gains: By automating repetitive tasks, you can save valuable time and resources. 

3. Reduced Risk: With standardized templates and automated approval workflows, you can minimize business and regulatory risks. 

4. Reduced Data Integrity Risk: By integrating contract data across your systems, you can maintain data integrity and improve customer and vendor relations. 

5. Stronger Vendor and Customer Management: Enhance your vendor and customer relationships by keeping all contract-related communications and actions transparent and timely. 

Best Practice 2: Focus on User Adoption 

User adoption plays a vital role in the successful implementation of a contract management solution. Engage your users early in the process and throughout the implementation phase to ensure a smooth transition. Focus on enhancing your existing solution by adding the following capabilities: 

1. Repository & Search: A centralized contract repository with advanced search features can help users locate contracts quickly and easily. 

2. Connected Data & Processes: By connecting your contract data and processes, you can facilitate collaboration and ensure consistency across the organization. 

3. Dashboards & Notifications: Dashboards offer a visual representation of contract data, while notifications ensure timely action on contracts. 

4. Contract Lifecycle Workflows: Automating contract lifecycle workflows can streamline contract creation, approval, and management. 

5. Contracts (NDA, SOW, MSA, 3PP): Standardizing your contract templates for NDAs, SOWs, MSAs, and third-party agreements can save time and minimize errors. 

6. Obligation, Deviation, Risk: By tracking contractual obligations, deviations, and risks, you can maintain compliance and minimize potential pitfalls. 

Best Practice 3: Focus on the Platform 

Choosing a contract management platform that suits your business needs is crucial. Here are some considerations: 

1. Workflow Flexibility: Choose a platform that offers flexibility in setting up contract approvals, reviews, and lifecycle management workflows. 

2. Customization Flexibility: The platform should allow customization of contract templates, layouts, and new attributes to cater to your unique needs. 

3. UX Richness: A user-friendly interface with features such as lifecycle visualization, and advanced contract repository browsing and search functionality enhances user experience. 

4. Alerts, Notifications, Reminders: The system should offer customizable alerts, notifications, and reminders for important contract events and progression milestones. 

5. Security: Given that contracts contain confidential information, it's important that the platform offers robust data and action access controls. 

Best Practice 4: Focus on the Platform for the Future 

Your chosen contract management platform should not just cater to your current needs, but also have the potential to scale and evolve with your future requirements. Here are some key considerations: 

1. Performance, Technical Scalability, and Security: The platform should offer high performance and the ability to scale as your business grows, without compromising on security. 

2. Availability of Complementary, Superior-grade Applications: The platform should have the capacity to integrate with other key business applications seamlessly. 

3. Administration Benefit Leverage: The platform should offer administrative benefits such as easy configuration and maintenance. 

4. Smooth Connectivity Across Processes, Data, Insights: A platform that allows smooth connectivity across various processes, data, and insights can greatly enhance your contract management capabilities. 

5. UX Consistency and Richness Across Applications: The platform should offer a consistent and rich user experience across all integrated applications. 

Best Practice 5: Crawl, Walk, Run 

Transitioning to a new contract management system is a journey. Start slow, understand your system thoroughly, and gradually increase your usage and capabilities. Don't attempt to do it all by yourself. Partner with a trusted contract management solution provider who can guide you through the implementation process and beyond. 

Finally, it's important to understand that contract management is a maturity model that evolves over time: 

1. Contracts & Terms in a Centralized Repository: Start by centralizing your contracts and terms in a single repository. 

2. Process Maturity with Clause and Template Standardization: Next, standardize your clauses and templates to ensure consistency across your contracts. 

3. Power of ML & AI Using Connected Data: Leverage the power of Machine Learning and AI to derive insights from your connected data. 

4. Skyrocket Your ServiceNow ROI: Lastly, optimize your use of the ServiceNow platform to maximize your return on investment and enhance your contract management capabilities. 

Unlocking your contract potential requires a strategic approach that focuses on defining clear goals, ensuring user adoption, selecting the right platform, and planning for future needs. By doing so, you can transform your contract management process, minimize risks, and enhance operational efficiency. 

Don't let contract management challenges hold your business back. Discover with Aavenir how you can revolutionize your contract management process. 

Conclusion 

Navigating the contract management maze can be daunting, but it doesn't have to be. By following these best practices, you can unlock the full potential of your contracts and achieve significant efficiency gains. Remember, the journey to contract management maturity is a marathon, not a sprint, and the right contract management solution can be a game-changer for your organization. Take the first step today and schedule a demo to see how you can transform your contract management process.