2. Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM)

Contract lifecycle management (CLM) is the process of controlling, coordinating, and streamlining all stages in the life cycle of a contract. Contract life-cycle management (CLM) software helps firms create, manage, and achieve maximum value from business contracts with customers, suppliers, vendors and dealers.and is a key piece of the business technology agenda.

7 Stages of Contract Life Cycle Management

• Requesting contract - The contract management process begins by identifying contracts and appropriate documents to support the contract’s purpose, where user requests for initiating a contract to be executed with contracting party.
  
  
• Authoring -  The “authoring” process is about setting up contract templates and clause libraries to empower business users and legal users, respectively, to create new contracts in a fast but controlled fashion. Writing a contract by hand is a time-consuming activity, but through the use of automated contract management systems, the process can become quite streamlined.

• Contract Negotiation -  Upon completion of drafting the contract, employees should be able to compare versions of the contract and note any discrepancies to reduce negotiation time by half when contract processes are automated and streamlined.
   
  
• Approval Process -  The instance in which most bottlenecks in contract processes, automated contract management allows users to preemptively strike by tailoring approval workflows, including parallel and serial approvals, and keep business clipping along at a rapid pace.
  
  
• Contract Execution  - Automated contract execution allows users to control and shorten the signature process with eSignature and Manual Signature. Contracts executed are effectively managed from the effective date to expiry date.
  
  
• Auditing & Reporting -  Automated contract management processes utilize a full range of valuable audit and reporting tools such as contract compliance alerts, audit tracking, on-demand report generation and easy integration with third-party reporting tools.
  
  
• Contract Renewal and Amendment -  Using manual contract management methods can often result in missed renewal opportunities and business revenue lost. By automating contract management processes, a business can quickly identify contract renewal candidates, allowing plenty of time to act, and automatically create new contract drafts based on the previous contract. Automated systems provide a single, effective view of a business relationship across multiple contract amendments.