CLM Matrix’s mission is clear: To equip our customers with process and policy best practices, technology tools, and tactics that can be used as major drivers of buy-side and sell-side contract management transformation.
Latest Posts
The Mr. October of Contract Lifecycle Management
October 23
Of course Reggie Jackson is the original Mr. October. He was named as such because of his clutch hitting in the post season. He has three consecutive World Series titles under his bat and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1993. Fangraphs.com actually calculates a “clutch” score for every major league hitter. It’s [...]
Do You Know Where Your Gold Is?
October 6
Ok, let me explain. Every company has some nuggets of gold in their contracts but they probably don’t know about them. In the past, it was really difficult to track and report on these terms (so most companies did not even try to identify their contractual gold and just gave up…I don’t blame them, as [...]
BP Horizon — The Big Clean Up In Enterprise-Wide Risk Management
September 29
Board of directors across the world are putting risk management at the top of their agendas. And, if you happen to be on the board for any oil and gas company, well, this may be the only thing on the agenda. How much real progress is being made in enterprise risk management? Hard to say. [...]
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How To Avoid The Emotional Aspect of Contract Management Risk
September 22
In promoting his new book, How Risky Is It, Really? author and consultant David Ropeik comments that the human risk perception system is based more on emotion and instincts than on reason and rationality. And while this serves us well when we are faced with a hairy Mastodon or poisonous snake, it may not be [...]
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Heed the SharePoint Calling…
September 6
A byte of good news to share… According to a recent CDW IT Monitor survey, CIOs are increasingly optimistic about IT hiring and technology spending for the rest of 2010. Thirty seven percent of those surveyed said they anticipated hiring tech staff in second-half 2010, up from 11 percent for the same period in 2009. [...]
Five Best Practices for Enterprise Contract Management
August 17
I ran into this great short article, the Top Ten Innovations to Improve Enterprise-Wide Wide Contract Management, and I thought I would share it. The Huron Consulting Group put this together, and I think they did a great job. I will briefly summarize it here (at least my top 5, from their top 10), and [...]
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When Fragmentation is Good
August 13
We recently had a chance to re-read the Gartner Publication — Enterprise Contract Management Solutions for Vendor Guide, 2010.
One of the intriguing revelations was how fragmented the market is. It’s reasonable to conclude that Enterprise Contract Management (ECM) solutions would follow the path of other technology life cycles…
Hall of Fame Employees
August 5
On Saturday, August 7, 2010, the Class of 2010 will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. To be eligible, a player must have been retired for 5 years or more. Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith both retired from football in 2005. They were both quite accomplished players. They each [...]
Sell-Side Contracts: The important "little c"
July 21
What is it about sales, service and channel partnerships that makes them messy and complicated? Contracts. Lots and lots of contracts with lots and lots of “stuff” in each of them. Sell-side negotiations generally start with some definition of products and services (configuration), the specific purchase amount (price), and a total volume commitment for a [...]
Boys of Summer
July 7
Views from the Umpires: “I call ‘em as I see ‘em.” “I call ‘em as they are.” “They ain’t nothin’ till I call ‘em.” Has this ever happened in your organization? Completely different views on how to view things? Take customers and obligations. It may or may not surprise you to learn that for many [...]
If You’re Not Leading…The View Never Changes
June 24
In our recent blog, Fortunate 500, we noted that the Fortune 500 eliminated 821,000 jobs (almost 3.2% of their payroll) in 2009. Of course this makes sense if these companies’ sales also remain comparatively low. But, this hasn’t been the case as sales are coming back faster than the people. Which all makes for a [...]
One Great Reason to Use a Contract Lifecycle Management System (an Attorney’s Take)
June 18
As an attorney who has worked in-house at a large company (around 6,000 employees), I really think there is one great reason to use a contract lifecycle management system. Get Control of Your Contracts. I have found what while most in-house attorneys do not view their corporate contracts as being ‘out of control,’ they often really are. [...]
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Make Your Contract Management Process a Commodity
June 7
The term “commodity” is often met with fear and denial. Few businesses want to see themselves as commodities. This makes sense. But, are there times when thinking like a commodity can be beneficial? That probably depends on which side you’re on. Nearly a decade ago, public accounting firms provided value-added audit services during the Internet [...]
Graduating to Spring
May 20
Could it be that the long winter of financial doldrums is now behind us and we’re moving into spring? Well, that’s hard to say. If you Bing “evidence the recession is over,” you’ll see several interesting things. Turns out there’s an entire committee of economists who determine when U.S. recessions officially begin and end. Of [...]
Demystifying Contracts?
May 14
I have found that contracts and their contents are often too mysterious, and quite frankly it does not have to be this way; as a lawyer I can say this. Why are signed contracts kept only in the legal department, and you have to contact a lawyer to look at them? Why are they not [...]
