In our previous blog on Building an Effective Contracting Process – What are the challenges? Part 1 and part 2, we discussed the difficulties in managing the contracting process. We also discussed ways for improving contract governance within the organization. (Click here)

In this final blog post, we will talk about 2 more ways for leveraging technology as a means to attain an efficient contract management process. They are;

1. Standardizing contract terms by

• Implementing a process which automatically guides sourcing managers to the right template based on a question based survey.
• Standardizing your organization’s terms and clauses by working with different stakeholders to avoid back and forth on the same.
• Tracking what terms are often negotiated and change those terms in the base template.

2. Reducing contract cycle time by

• Automating the approval process by way of pre-defined approval workflow.
• Implementing clause level approvals instead of giving the entire contract for approval every time changes are made to particular clause/s.
• Using eSignature to automate the signing process to avoid the hassle of scanning and uploading the documents.

With the changing business environment and spurts of supplier related scandals, it has become necessary for organizations to manage contracts effectively. Managing contracts manually has many pitfalls, as discussed earlier. To avoid these, organizations can leverage technology and work smarter.