SharePoint isn’t a standalone solution like email or Bing. It’s one of those facilitator solutions where you get the best results when you build on top of it. Being able to use SharePoint as the underlying platform has tremendous functional and cost advantages. First of all, your company probably already owns it. Secondly, leveraging the existing technology means less time learning new software development platforms. And, as an added benefit, because it’s a Microsoft product, your users will already be familiar with the general use, which means less training and faster adoption.

CIOs and their departments can help the company’s business units be more self sufficient by taking advantage of the true power of SharePoint and the possibilities it brings. Taking the time to conduct a process workshop can really help these units understand their workflow. And, once you can quantify a workflow, you can build a system to help manage and monitor it. The ability to identify and quantify a workflow may be the CIOs greatest talent. Because without this process, people tend to go into a silo and start building things they think they need, but can cause more problems down the road. We see this a lot as we begin working with companies on their contract workflow process. Lots of moving parts, but no well running engine.

Another benefit of having a full understanding of the workflows is that you can more readily see and find solutions that have already been created. Solutions that will work on top of the investment you’ve already made. And this is just what the doctor ordered for curing your application backlog blues.

If your current contract management system isn’t seamless, transparent or able to handle your entire contract workflow well, then change that today with a rules-driven, compliance solution to manage obligations and mitigate business risks. Click here to contact us and schedule a product demonstration.

When companies with complex information needs decide to build systems to help manage their information, they like SharePoint because it’s such a powerful foundation. We like to think of SharePoint as a building’s foundation — rock solid concrete on which you can build your heart’s desire. This foundation gives you general knowledge & content management, document sharing and collaboration. Once you have this, you can get very creative and smart with what you build.

For Life Sciences and Health Care, you can build in functionality such as research and development, quality management, manufacturing and operations, clinical data management, customer service, and of course, contract lifecycle management.

Our client, Nektar Therapeutics, is an excellent example of how to leverage and extend the value of SharePoint. Recently cited in Pharmaceutical Commerce Magazine, they are solving their complicated workflow by adding Matrix-Enterprise onto their SharePoint foundation.

If your heart’s desire includes making the complex simple and automating your workflow by using SharePoint as your foundation, then let us help you with a blueprint that brings clear visibility with a rules-driven, compliance solution to manage obligations and mitigate business risk. Click here to contact us and schedule a product demonstration.

When companies create solutions that solve real problems, life is really good. Sometimes they get lucky and solve problems we didn’t even know we had — like PostIt® notes. And sometimes they are intuitive and smart and can see trends others cannot. Microsoft is really good at this. Yes, they have occasionally succumbed to the “feature beyond need” disease that affects many technology companies — think Microsoft Word — honestly, who among us either knows nor can use all the features within Word? But today, their focus in on SharePoint and it’s turning out to be their biggest success yet. Of course, years in the market and total domination never hurts, but, they do keep delivering!

SharePoint has opened a lot of communication doorways within companies. Now IT executives will sometimes cringe and do have moments of panic as they try to understand how to control, standardize, monitor, and get a handle on the data/information that tends to multiply like rabbits within SharePoint. But for the most part, everyone is seeing and reaping tremendous benefits from this collaboration tool.

Leverage your existing SharePoint investment

Using SharePoint as a contract repository is an excellent use of this powerful enterprise-wide content management portal. Getting all your contracts into this portal and applying the necessary meta-tags so you can extract information from the data, is an effective first step in understanding your contractual obligations. It can help you answer questions about how you make money and the risks involved in your various business commitments.

From here, companies like ours can get you to the next level — by creating rules-based workflow processes, alerts, visibility, etc. The goal of course is to start where you are, and evolve in a meaningful, forward-focused way.

If you’re looking to get “bang for the buck” by using SharePoint as your contract repository and then leap frog into clear visibility with a rules-driven, compliance solution to manage obligations and mitigate business risks, then click here to contact us and schedule a product demonstration.

How easy is it for these managers to measure what was actually produced against the price concession given to the vendor? What happens to the bottom line when these don’t match up? How quickly can adjustments be made? And, if there is no opportunity to adjust the current contract, how much of this knowledge can be used for future forecasting and future contract negotiations?

Along those same lines, what if the contract also has a penalty for not meeting the agreed upon purchase volume? How is that financial risk forecasted, measured, reported, understood?  In many cases, companies do not have this type of contract intelligence available, which can lead to a few surprises. And, these types of surprises don’t typically sit well with CFOs.

Vendor Relationship

Then there’s the whole vendor relationship to consider. Moods can shift quickly from collaboration to protectionism when profits are at risk. Companies that have systems in place to proactively manage obligations vs. reactive post-mortem analysis are better prepared to make current and future decisions which preserve and enhance vendor relationships as well as bottom line profits.

If your current contract management system is hindering the effectiveness and insight of your purchasing experts, then change that today with a rules-driven, compliance solution to manage obligations and mitigate business risks. Click here to contact us and schedule a product demonstration.

Depending on the company and their systems and workflow process, the answers to the question of “How did Q1 go?” may vary significantly.

Legal in one company may be frustrated because the renewal process brought to light a set of clauses that need to change immediately. They are now in the process of updating these clauses. If they have a legal library, this is quick and simple — one change and you’re done. If they don’t have a legal library or some well defined system for handling clauses, they may have to complete the update one template at a time. Additionally, they need to understand what exposure they have with existing contracts that have the old clauses. How quick and simple this process is depends on their contract system. Could be a push of a button, or could require an army of administrative help. Hard to say.

As for sales in another company, who knows, maybe they’re loving life because their contract system gives them visibility into the past and streamlines the contract initiation phase. For renewals, the ability to take a peek at what transpired last time is a huge advantage. Those past negotiations and contract changes are all there for review, making the renewal process infinitely more efficient and effective.  And, for all those transactions they executed during the quarter, they’re practically giddy over the smooth and quick cycle of initiation-to-execution. No black-hole approval processes. No confusion on what clauses can and cannot be included. No re-inventing the wheel. Life is good.

We hope life for you is good. But, if you’re company needs to improve your scorecard with a rules-driven, compliance solution to manage obligations and mitigate business risks click here to contact us and schedule a product demonstration.

But, if ever there is a country who can “take it,” it’s Japan. Like no other, we’ve seen Japan as the Phoenix arising from the ashes on more than one occasion. The final outcome here will be no different. They are made to succeed.

And, not to be Pollyanna here, but we know much good will come from this. We are almost assured of better nuclear energy technology, intelligence and a rebuilding, which may be very good news for an economy that has been stagnant for many years.

While our hearts are focused on the people and their challenges, some minds are focused on the business aspect of this disruption. Much like the Katrina era (see our article Mitigating Risks), companies all over the world are now ascertaining their exposure to this disaster. U.S. companies with employees in Japan are making critical decisions about their safety and those that have customers and suppliers there are busy determining what the effects will be.

Lots of contracts, including employee and trade agreements, are being reviewed now to see what business risks are at stake.

This is where an efficient contract lifecycle management system is pretty darn useful. Knowing your company’s risks and exposures to such natural disasters and the protection afforded by Force Majeure language is essential. Getting this information in a matter of minutes not weeks…that is smart business. And smart businesses are more profitable and have less downside exposure to such unforeseen events.

If your company needs a rules-driven, compliance solution to manage obligations and mitigate business risks click here to contact us and schedule a product demonstration.

So, when we bring this concept into the workplace, we have the same desire. If sales and finance can’t get along, there’s a lot of wasted time and money in that situation. There is also a lot of wasted opportunity. And probably most certainly, the biggest loser is the customer.

Of course everything gets more complex when you take it from the sandbox into the workplace, but effective collaboration (read: playing nicely) means huge potential for expansion and profits and efficiencies. However, it can also mean a lot of refereeing and some pretty narrow silos if you don’t have proper systems in place.

As we mentioned in our recent article, Getting Legal, Finance and Sales to play in the Same Sandbox, while legal, finance and sales functionally play in the same sandbox, they are not involved in similar work nor do they share similar agendas, timelines or incentives. With regards to contract issues, legal really doesn’t want to be involved in the business terms and conditions. They only care about the legal terms and conditions. This is where defining and automating your workflow really pays off.  Giving all your team members a process that works and make sense, also means a lot less refereeing.

If you’d like to improve efficiencies, profits and put some fun back into your sandbox through a rules-driven, compliance solution to complex contract management problems, click here to contact us and schedule a product demonstration.

As we stated in our April 2010 Blog, Contract Renewals. Do You Know What You Need To Know?, the average Fortune 500 company manages 20,000 to 40,000 contracts at any given time. If you’re responsible for managing these thousands of contracts, you can fill in the blank: This is a whole lot of ___________________. Work? Confusion? Stress?

At the most basic level, you want to use the data you have in your contracts to get a decent understanding of your stated obligations and the challenges and/or risks they bring. Beyond that, you likely want to create a collaborative effort in reviewing and understanding the data, particularly when it comes times for a milestone review, audit, or renewal. Giving intelligence to functional experts can be a real breath of fresh air for taking your organization to the next level — “I know what I know but I don’t know what you know, and it turns out, what you know is really helpful.” Think of the time and money you will save. Think of the competitive advantages.

Wouldn’t it be great if your contracts were communicating with you all the time? If they were letting you know they need attention or you’re about to miss out on a really good thing. At renewal time, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have them sit down with you, one-on-one and have a real heart-to-heart about how the last cycle went and what could be done to improve the overall relationship?

Yes. Giving a voice to your contracts. That’s an interesting and achievable goal.

If you’d like to know now what you need to know. through a rules-driven, compliance solution to complex contract management problems, click here to contact us and schedule a product demonstration.

This means the cost containment that’s been in full effect over the last several years will ease and companies will be looking for technology investments to gain efficiencies and competitive ground.  From compliance to overlooked incentives to better reporting and business intelligence, companies want more.

So, okay, the purse strings have loosened and CIOs are charged with finding the next great technology breakthrough, but how do they justify the cost?

In our recent article, How to Cost Justify a Contract Lifecycle Management Solution, we outline the steps we see most often in the cost justification phase of technology selection. Briefly, those steps are:

1. Diagnose and describe the problem with your existing system (or lack thereof)
2. Identify potential solutions and how they fit with your IT architecture
3. Put legs under your concept — look at these key areas: Improved productivity and efficiencies, risk penalty reductions, and economies of scale
4. Get to really know the vendors you are looking at — invite them for a visit

Two of the key pain points we address with our clients and prospects are (1) policy compliance; and (2) process efficiency. In these situations, cost justification can be calculated by understanding the cost of doing nothing. For example, there is a new study by the Ponemon Institute that substantiates what you already know — “companies that invest more in compliance initiatives typically have lower expenses when something goes awry.” Nothing earth shattering here but, the study does go on to provide quantifiable data that is worth a second look — “The study found the cost of compliance was on average more than $3.5 million, significantly less than the $9.4 million in estimated costs for failing to comply with regulations.”

That seems like a pretty good investment.

If you’d like to see what you are missing in having a rules-driven, compliance solution to complex contract management problems, click here to contact us and schedule a product demonstration.

For corporate auditors, it can be a rather somber time. Think about how the folks at Campbell’s Soup felt with they discovered that the sales team offered deep discounts to customers who already had enough product in their inventory. Doesn’t sound like that big of a deal but, the attorney’s in the subsequent class action suit* wrote, “although the customer paid for the product, the revenue recognized on these transactions was improper and in contravention of the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Due to unprecedented level of loading, Campbell’s was unable to reasonably estimate the amount of returns.”  Ouch!

Now if Norman Rockwellish Campbell’s Soup has issues with revenue recognition, then what must the rest of corporate America be facing?  So many rules. So few resources to monitor them all.

What is clear is that companies who ignore compliance with regulatory rules could find themselves restating their earnings — and facing lawsuits and waning stock prices.

In our blog, It Count. No It Doesn’t, we wrote about this issue of sales vs. compliance departments.  But the issue isn’t just about the interactions between sales and compliance teams. It’s really more a matter of structured systems and automated business policies that ensure everyone is doing the right thing.

Campbell’s Soup auditors will no doubt have new rules in place that directly govern deep discounting. This type of rule evolution should be automated and streamlined within the sales contract process so that there are no future “situations.”  This really should be the case for all rules and obligations. The contract process should reflect them across the contract lifecycle.

This type of rigor and compliance means no surprises. And people like Norman Rockwell, CEOs, CFOs, and auditors love that.

If you’d like a rules-driven, revenue recognition solution to complex contract management problems, click here to contact us and schedule a product demonstration.

*As previously reported, ten purported class action lawsuits were commenced against the company and certain of its officers in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. The lawsuits were subsequently consolidated, and an amended consolidated complaint was filed alleging, among other things, that the company and certain of its officers misrepresented the company’s financial condition between September 8, 1997 and January 8, 1999, by failing to disclose alleged shipping and revenue recognition practices in connection with the sale of certain company products at the end of the company’s fiscal quarters in violation of Section 10 (b) and 20 (a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder. The actions seek compensation and other damages, and costs and expenses associated with the litigation. The company believes the action is without merit and intends to defend the case vigorously.