In-House Counsel: Turn Contract Management Nightmares Into Opportunities

The average Fortune 1000 company maintains 20,000 to 40,000 active contracts, often with obligations that number in the tens of thousands. For small and mid-sized businesses, the numbers might be lower, but the ability to successfully manage the contract process is just as daunting. The demands of an information-overloaded, 24/7 global economy are straining legal departments to deliver faster, while maintaining a high level of due diligence and control over the contracting process.

To further complicate matters, in-house legal teams are being asked — with fewer resources — to juggle rising regulatory and compliance demands, increasingly complex risk management, and relentless business pressures to renegotiate contracts.

This has led legal departments to look to technology solutions with the goal of streamlining the contract process. For many, this has meant saving drafts, versions, and final copies in an electronic folder system on a server, sometimes backed up by hard copies buried somewhere in a dusty filing cabinet. This “file and forget” approach often leads to:

• Deficient contract approvals;
• Un-auditable contract paper trails;
• Poor contract visibility; and
• Lost savings, profit, and revenue.

Fortunately, sophisticated, integrated contract management software has emerged, with capabilities spanning virtually every stage of the contract lifecycle, from proposal through performance milestone monitoring and ongoing analysis.

Download this whitepaper: Contract Management’s Effect on In-House Counsel. It delves into the risks companies face with a “file and forget” approach to contract management, as well as the core benefits of selecting the right one.

Perhaps most importantly, the whitepaper can help in-house counsel make the business case for contract management.