In the previous blog we spoke about the significance of contracts and the issues with contracts authored using MS word and emails.
In this blog we will talk about what procurement executives should look for when evaluating contract management technology.
Procurement executives should look for a technology that provides the following:
- A library, which stores pre-approved clauses. Additionally possess an ability to create, import and store contract templates.
- An approval workflow, which defines a hierarchy that will be followed for contract approval. This ensures information passes through the correct channel and is accurate. The approval workflow may vary depending upon various parameters. For instance, if the contract amount is beyond $50,000 approval from the director is mandatory. However, for amount less than $50,000 the contract can be approved by head of department.
- Integration of MS word with the authoring tool which provides the ability to import/export word document.
- Collaborative authoring with concerned stakeholders as defined in the workflow, which facilitates editing the contracts based on the input from different stakeholders.
- Audit trail for comparing different versions of the word document for the red lines. The tool should provide an option to quickly compare side by side all the changes done to different versions of a contract even if the changes are done in word document.
- A defined ownership that provides control access to contracts based on contract category, contract type or business units / departments.
- Easy integration with existing ERP or any other system being used by the organization.
- A user friendly UI that would attract users to adopt the solution. Since, even if the authoring tool provides the best of the functionality but if they are not easy to use then the purpose for automated contract management is defeated as users would eventually opt for manual means.
In the next blog we will explore the benefits of using the correct contract management technology.
For further reading, click on the download button below to access the white paper-Scripting the Contract Story
