What’s your function? What’s your industry? CLM is much more than legal  

It’s safe to say there are a few common misconceptions out there about contract lifecycle management (CLM). 
 
First, it’s that CLM is intended to be used only for legal departments.  
 
The second misconception is that CLM is only needed for highly regulated industries, like biotech and pharmaceuticals.  
 
The reality? A flexible, robust CLM solution like Agiloft can benefit departments across the enterprise, including sales, finance, and HR. And while it certainly is an incredible tool for highly regulated industries, CLM can benefit a wide gamut of industries, from biotech and pharma to higher education, nonprofits, and more.  
 
Read on to learn more about why CLM is so much more than legal.  

How CLM benefits the entire enterprise

With contracting at the core of their responsibilities, legal teams, of course, are the first department that come to mind when considering the benefits of a CLM. But contracts are the backbone of almost every department, from legal, to sales, to finance and HR, and when all departments streamline their operations using a cohesive CLM, the entire enterprise thrives. 

Consider the following impacts on each department:

Legal

Legal teams of all sizes are tasked with handling tough questions related to business obligations, risk profiles, penalties, government compliance, and much more. Put simply, they’re stressed out, concerned they’ll make the wrong call or miss a small detail. Mitigating risk is challenging and this high-impact task falls squarely on Legal teams. 

A centralized CLM system can help. Utilizing CLM, legal teams can assess business threats, manage exposure to risk, and respond proactively, rather than reactively.

Procurement

Since procurement teams are always working to find, establish, formalize, and build new relationships with contractors, vendors, and suppliers, they often do the work of negotiating the terms and conditions of new contracts. A contract management software system increases the speed, accuracy, and ease of new contract creation by allowing cloud-based proofing, compliance analytics, clause templating, and other functions, making this critical process easier. 

Furthermore, a CLM can give procurement teams insights into the efficiencies of a contract so these teams can make higher-quality evaluations on whether a potential business relationship furthers the greater goals of the organization. 

Sales

Contracts are the backbone of commerce, yet they can often lead to delays, bottlenecks, and even deals completely dying on the vine when they hit a snag in the contract approval process. 
 
The solution? A flexible CLM system that removes human errors by automatically routing, pushing, and escalating contract approvals as needed. 
 
Leading CLM solutions like Agiloft can shorten sales cycles and even boost revenue by integrating seamlessly with other software, such as Salesforce, to enable businesses to further automate their contracting processes and negotiate deals in a fraction of the time. Additionally, inter-system integrations allow for easy access to contract and customer information, creating a more efficient workflow for internal stakeholders.  

HR

HR teams deal with huge amounts of contract data that can benefit from CLM, including offer letters, healthcare forms, NDAs, and other similar forms. A contract management system can help HR teams track and allow proper access to important company documents, including employee handbooks and company policies, expense reports, and personal individual employee information. 

Finance

With the amount of data finance teams handle, it can be challenging to unlock meaningful insights and act on them accordingly. Contract management software can make tasks such as locating unpaid revenue or identifying underperforming services much easier, creating opportunities for increased revenue, customer service, and other critical business functions. 
 
By integrating contracts into your workflow, your organization can avoid fees for things such as missed deadlines or unmet terms. By allowing the creation of addendums and terminations in real-time, you can ensure all parties are working from the most current version of a contract, reducing confusion and unnecessary communication. 

How CLMs help a variety of industries

CLM has obvious applications to ensure compliance in highly regulated industries such as biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, but it can also revolutionize the business processes of organizations across all industries, including non-profits, transportation and logistics, and higher education. 
 
Consider the following customer success stories: 

Biotech/pharma

With the ability to integrate with more than 1,000 different business applications, a proven CLM like Agiloft can be a game changer in the biotech/pharma industries. Leading pharmaceutical provider La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company experienced great success implementing Agiloft CLM.  

Thanks to Agiloft’s flexibility, La Jolla was able to customize the system to fit their unique work streams as well as integrate it with their existing management and signatory software. La Jolla’s senior document management associate at the time said: “It’s been a great experience…I don’t know why everyone doesn’t give it a try.” 

Higher education

Workflow automation was a key element to the contracting success of Portland Community College (PCC), the largest institution of higher learning in the state of Oregon. With increased visibility into contract workflows, they reduced contract turnaround time by more than 50% – from 55 days to 21 days on average.  

“Agiloft has just really been a game changer for us,” said Michael Mathews, procurement and contract services manager at PCC. “We’re finally being proactive rather than reactive with our stakeholders.” 

Nonprofit

Based in Omaha, Nebraska, 100-year-old nonprofit Boys Town supports more than 2 million people each year with services that include housing, advocacy, and behavioral health education. With Agiloft’s CLM solution in place, inter-enterprise communication at Boys Town has significantly improved. 

 “With Agiloft, we are able to standardize more of what we do and [are] able to track a contract while it’s in process,” Asst. General Counsel James Beckmann said. “The fact that the solution can grow and change with us is very positive.” 

Enjoying the benefits of CLM across the enterprise

Instead of piecing together a series of disconnected systems and tech stacks, imagine if all of your organization’s departments were working from a single “source of truth” – that finance, procurement, sales, legal, HR, and finance were all in sync using the same information, but tailored in a way that they needed to accomplish their business goals. Imagine a solution that solves multi-departmental workflow issues, clunky approval processes, compliance, budget tracking, and can be customized to excel within an industry or business function. 

That solution is an enterprise-level CLM like Agiloft. With CLM, your entire enterprise can ensure the contracting processes are efficient, compliant, secure, optimized, and managed in a streamlined and centralized system that significantly reduces costs. 

Learn more about how Agiloft CLM can be tailored to fit every business function and industry. Schedule a demo today.