应有的合同管理

To encourage each part of your contractmanagement process to move in harmony, The perfect storm Contracts are the lifeblood of any organization; they are keyto getting business done. Organizations large and small havecountless active contracts at any given time, with terms andobligations to monitor and risk to mitigate. So, how are all of these Here’s how the contract lifecycle unfolds — and how a contractmanagement system can help at every stage along the way. Some companies have “legacy” contract management systemsconsisting of a series of filing cabinets in which hard- copyagreements collect dust in folders labeled ineffectively by the name Request or submission The contract lifecycle starts with a business unit requesting a draftagreement on the company’s standard terms or alternatively the A more “modern” system may use the digital equivalent of the filefolder: a hierarchy of folders on a local drive, in Microsoft® Outlookor SharePoint or perhaps a cloud storage tool like Dropbox or Boxthat captures all contractual documents. In most cases, contractsare created using Microsoft Word templates and shared over emailfor collaboration, mark-up, and negotiation. In the worst cases, old In the case of a request, the goal is to get the critical informationneeded to create the appropriate contract and get it into the handsof the right person while ensuring the least amount of resistance.That way, you can avoid the risk of drafting unsuitable terms or You can expedite this process by using a system that provides dynamicforms that can be populated with the key details required to draftthe contract and then marry the data and responses with a template But in terms of actual utility, these tools provide little more thanstorage — and opaque storage at that. Lawyers and business leaderscan’t use these static data repositories for anything more complexthan basic queries. It’s the data equivalent of the mythical BermudaTriangle: you can certainly shove all your data into this quagmire ofa filing system, but given the perfect storm of disorganization and However, not all contracts will be drafted by your team — sometimesthey will be on third-party paper. In this case, it’s important thatthe contract management system also offers the ability to submitcontracts into the platform that are not on your organization’s Drafting Unless you have received a contract on third-party paper, the nextstep is to create an agreement from the collected information that Don’t resign yourself to wandering about in the nightmare ofcontracts. It’s time to extricate yourself from the confusion with a To ensure consistency, preapproved templates and clauseswith built-in guidance, should be readily available through thecontract management system; self-service options for simple, What contract management should look like Contract management should be more than merecompartmentalization and storage. Rather, effective contractmanagement is a comprehensive process that requires orchestrating An automated solution — especially one that integrates with theG-Suite and Microsoft Office applications — can ensure that yougenerate more consistent documents, avoid the errors inherent inmanual contract drafting, and eliminate the bottlenecks that occur When all phases and stakeholders come together in a centralizedcontract management ecosystem, you have unprecedented controland visibility into all contracting activities, workflows, approvals,documents, and metrics — speeding up transactions and delivering Execution Negotiation Negotiators from both sides will ensure that the terms of theagreement support their interests and further their overall strategic All parties must sign the agreement to make it effective. Waiting for hard-copy signatures from authorized signatories can slowthe execution process significantly and needlessly. Digital signatures,by contrast, can accelerate the time to closing a deal, again, especiallyif you can capture or authorize electronic signatures from mobiledevices wherever the signatory may be. Either way, an automated In this phase, it’s critical that both sides accurately track the statusof the agreement as it moves its way through numerous versions and When contract negotiation is carried out over email, comments arescattered, required changes are missed, and issues not logged. Itcan also take longer to obtain the necessary approvals for deviationsto the business’ standard contractual playbook. But, by using asingle, consolidated system, all stakeholders can monitor the process Obligations Throughout the life of the contract, both parties must adhere to its terms. While spreadsheets can track critical terms and key dates, they won’tnotify parties of breaches or advise them when they need to takeaction, or even what action needs to be taken. Approval The next step is to secure approval of the contract’s final terms fromthe appropriate stakeholders. Contracts of differing values and risks But it’s