Transforming contracts, the foundation of commerce
The emergence of cloud and digital technologies is transforming how manufacturers interact with their customers. Over the coming months, we’ll be blogging about some of the groundbreaking ways that Microsoft and partner technologies are enhancing the customer experience and driving growth. Today’s blog post features Icertis, the leading enterprise contract management platform built on Microsoft Azure that helps manufacturers significantly improve the end-to-end contract process and enhance contract management enterprise-wide.
Contracts are foundational to commerce in that they control nearly every dollar that goes in and out of a company. Given this critical function and the volume of contracts necessary to conduct business today, a contract lifecycle management (CLM) solution is quickly changing from a “nice to have” to a “need to have.”[1] This is particularly true in manufacturing, where organizations operate with especially complex linked contracts that handle both customer and supplier orders. Because of this complexity, manufacturers stand to gain significantly from using an enterprise contract management solution to help turn their contracts into valuable corporate assets.
Contracts are often unorganized and require manual processes
Most manufacturers have a limited line-of-sight into contract information across their business and don’t have the insights they need to proactively mitigate against risks. One reason for this is that data remains siloed and inaccessible. A typical Fortune 1000 company can have anywhere between 20,000 to 40,000 active contracts at any given time, managed by multiple owners, departments and processes.[2] Each team – sales, legal, procurement – has to have a hand in the process, and that takes time. But as contracts are developed, these contributors don’t have an easy way to collaborate or work together.
And the challenge continues even after the contracts are signed. When departments are siloed, nobody in the organization has a 360-degree view of the health and status of these contracts. This also makes it difficult for teams to communicate with each other and share information in a timely manner. This creates bottlenecks and hides insights that might otherwise help teams work more efficiently. Manufacturers also struggle to efficiently ensure compliance, instead relying on tedious processes to manually account for each regulation. Although these steps are critical, they often prevent contracts from getting to customers or suppliers in a timely manner and don’t update in real-time as regulations change. Needless to say, the current paradigm is not able to support the agile business processes that manufacturers need to run their business efficiently.
Transformation in the contract process offers big opportunities
Manufacturers stand to gain significantly by implementing CLM solutions. In fact, 63 percent of companies with CLM software report faster and more profitable negotiations[3]. A robust, cloud-based CLM saves time and money by driving efficiencies for buy-side, sell-side and corporate contract processes while delivering key business insights that make it easier to deliver on each contract. CLM then helps manufacturers mitigate risks, enabling easier compliance across the organization. If manufacturing organizations don’t make CLM a primary focus of their digital transformation, they will miss out on this dramatic growth opportunity.
Icertis helps companies transform contracts into business insights
The Icertis Contract Management (ICM) platform is built to help manufacturers, faced with digital transformation, solve their hardest contract management problems on the easiest-to-use platform. ICM is a leading contract management solution that is easy, intelligent and enterprise-wide. Because ICM has a cloud-native design built on Microsoft Azure, it is fast to deploy, easy to adopt and intuitive for any user. The solution delivers intelligent insights throughout the contract lifecycle with robust compliance management, risk-tracking and analytics incorporated through each stage. As a complete contract management solution, ICM enables visibility across the organization for any contract, anytime, anywhere in the world.
As contracts are prepared within the ICM platform, the solution simplifies compliance and minimizes rogue contracting from the start by providing a library of approved clauses and languages from which buyers and sellers can choose. This speeds contract execution, enabling faster procurement and quicker time to revenue. The solution also supports the post contract execution by flagging obligations and entitlements that could be money-making opportunities. Thanks to the cloud, additional insights are available everywhere for everyone, including mobile, and several users can make changes at the same time enabling a continuous contract cycle and collaboration. Icertis takes the burden out of sharing and validating contract information.
Try it today
Let Icertis transform your contracts into valuable corporate assets. With over 750,000 users, in 90+ countries, and 40+ languages, they have the experience and capacity to support any manufacturer and their unique challenges. Join the industry leader in contract lifecycle management and visit Microsoft AppSource today to learn how Icertis can simplify your organizations contract management.
[1] https://www.gartner.com/doc/3096023/market-guide-contract-life-cycle
[2] https://www.stateofflux.co.uk/ideas-insights/articles/the-challenge-and-value-of-better-contract-lifecyc
[3] https://www.paystreamadvisors.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/CLM_2.16-1.pdf
