Contract Management as a Process

Contracts do not manage themselves. Nor do contract processes develop on their own. You need to be prepared to put in place an effective contract management strategy regardless of whether you are tasked with managing a few or a great many.

This starts by understanding the current reality:

1. You need to understand your existing business processes.
2. You need to understand your users and how they work.
3. You need to understand your current process pain points. This comes from speaking with those involved in the contract process, including sales, finance, legal, and procurement, and how each group interacts with and depends on the others.
4. Look at your existing tools. What do you use to manage your contracts and why?

Once you have gathered data and understand your current reality, use that as a foundation to build from.

It starts with taking your understanding of the current reality and determining how to get from where you are to where you want to be and asking the question of WHY you want to get from where you are to where you want to be. Technology can help get you from a to b. However, technology is not a panacea and if you are not prepared to put in place a technological solution, putting one in place will not help you, but just the opposite – it will put an even brighter spotlight on your existing pain points and make existing problematic processes worse.