Deborah R WilsonI forgot something. Something important.
Two months ago I published a note called “The Four Axes of Contract Management Functionality.” The genesis of the note was my frustration with the zillions of vendors that say they have contract management solutions, but each do something that are at least somewhat different (and in some cases are completely different!) Trying to classify these vendors against hundreds of features was not working particularly well, especially as I tried to make progress writing up vendors for my long, long overdue honorable mentions report. That’s another story and I won’t go there today. The model has been really helpful and I’m grateful I finally eeked out a framework that works in classifying contract management solutions.
The point of this blog entry is that in the past weeks since I wrote that I wrote that note, I realize that there should have been a fifth dimension. I need to add compliance as a key grouping of functionality for an enterprise contract management solution, alongside authoring, boilerplate management, execution and administration.
What is contract compliance? Here again, like much of the story around contract management, everyone uses the term differently. I see various aspects to contract management, as follows:
· Governance. I.e. if you put ten templates in a system and set up the workflow so every proposed is drafted using the latest terms and conditions, and the workflow always routes each proposed contract by “Bob,” that’s a form of compliance.
· Credential compliance. Some systems are configured to monitor the presence of updated credential documents, and they send out warning notes/ reminder messages when documents are nearing expiration. Think insurance certificates, signed codes of conducts, NDA. This is compliance to credential policy.
· Pricing compliance. Product prices can be added to a proposed contract through integration to a configuration engine or price list; to ensure compliance to current pricing. Prices can be downloaded from contracts of any type into transactional systems - directly into order documents – or into modules that set up a base price for comparison and thus compliance. In its most elaborate form, pricing compliance can also be achieved by using contract data in a spend analysis, to provide a baseline of what prices should be.
So, I’ll have to fix up that four axes note and add this in. Eventually. After all, its yet another item for the to-do list!
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5 responses so far ↓
1 Ronan Lavelle March 27, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Hi Debbie, I am slightly confused by what you see as the difference between Contract Authoring and Boilerplate Management as core components of a Contract Lifecycle Management solution. Should Authoring not incorporate the creation and maintenance of contract boilerplates?
2 Gregg Barrett March 30, 2009 at 7:46 am
Hi Ronan
In my opnion, absolutely! Contract authoring should include the ability to create and management templates / boilerplates.
Based on reading of Gartner reports in the past, I believe that Gartner see it that way as well.
I would go further to say that it should include the ability to create and manage clause libraries as well.
3 Debbie Wilson April 6, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Hello Gregg – can I hire you to help me reply to comments? Just kidding ; – )
Really – I break out authoring from boilerplate management because a surprising number of contract management systems assume that the owner of the system ALWAYS authors an agreement. Therefore there is no “easy” way to upload or work with a contract that you didn’t create.
This may work if you’re the federal government. But for the rest of us – well we are often subject to the ts and cs of very large, powerful vendors who have a monopoly position or have enough compeititve advantage to dictate how others will work with them.
Thus . . . . .boilerplate management is separate in my model.
D
4 Ronan Lavelle April 6, 2009 at 4:05 pm
In that case Debbie, I agree with you!
5 Gregg Barrett April 8, 2009 at 11:06 am
Hi Debbie
I see where you are coming from on this. So perhaps we can agree that boilerplate management (templates) are seperate in your model, but nonetheless part of the model – as the capability is required, albeit it to varying extents, depending on the situation.
In my experience I have yet to see an entity that only signs 3rd party paper and one that only signs paper it authored.
As with many things in life, it’s a balance and therefore a CLM model / solution should be able to support both paper you create and that which you sign from a 3rd party.
Indeed many solutions often cater for one or the other, only the best cater well for both – that’s what seperates the best from the rest in my books and being an organisation that actually uses a CLM solution internally for both our own paper and 3rd party paper, I consider this functionality really important.