Contract lifecycle management (CLM) benefits

To improve compliance, accelerate sales-cycles and enhance cross-department collaboration between legal and the wider business, many businesses are adopting contract lifecycle management (CLM) software to manage their entire contract portfolio.

But how are these benefits achieved, and do all CLM software offer the same advantages? Read on to discover the benefits of contract lifecycle management and learn how to achieve the benefits at every stage of the contract management process.
‍

What is contract lifecycle management?

Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is the complete management of the end-to-end contract lifecycle. It manages each stage of the lifecycle from request to expiry to ensure contract compliance and maximise the value of the contract.

Today, contract lifecycle management tools are designed to standardise processes across the business, implementing specific workflows and guardrails around individual stages of the contract lifecycle.
‍

The contract lifecycle management process

Contracts touch almost every corner of a business. Contract lifecycle management tools are designed to automate and accelerate contracts throughout their lifecycle, so that everyone in the business can benefit.

Even though every contract and business may have a different process, typically most contracts go through the following six stages:

1. Creation: During the contract creation stage (also known as contract drafting or authoring), parties gather the required information and documents to define an agreement’s clauses, T&Cs and critical dates.
2. Negotiation: Following the creation stage, the parties enter negotiations to reach an agreement on the terms and conditions. This stage can involve multiple back-and-forth conversations between parties, with many rounds of contract reviews and contract redlining.
3. Approval: All parties agree and sign the contract.
4. Execution: After the contract has been signed, the agreement is legally binding and the parties must adhere to the terms.
5. Management and renewal: A contract is then stored and managed until its renewal or termination date.
6. Reporting and analytics: An often forgotten stage of the contract lifecycle, the reporting and analytics stage is vital for companies to spot trends, risks and opportunities.
   ‍

Explore the full contract lifecycle management process in even more detail, with business examples and solutions to help enhance each stage, in our guide The Contract Lifecycle Management Process.
‍

Contract lifecycle management benefits

We have already touched upon some of the many benefits of contract lifecycle management, but there are many more that can be advantageous to the whole business.
‍

Reduced risk

CLM tools powered by AI technology break down contractual information into easy-to-read summaries, highlighting risk and including comments, red flags and notes. Such features help streamline business decisions, reduce risk and avoid costly delays.

With Summize's AI functionality, legal teams have the power to review, analysis, review and redline contracts in no time. Without leaving Microsoft Word and guided by your playbooks, view instant red flags and receive a redlined contract along with suggested amendments in as little as 60 seconds.

{{testimonial 2}}

Automating the review process helps legal teams save up to 85% of their time, while also reducing the risk of errors that might occur with manual processing.
‍

Faster and improved revenue generation

According to research by EY, 59% of Business Development professionals say contracting inefficiencies result in lost opportunities. CLM software combats this issue by streamlining contract processes which helps improve sales-cycles and revenue growth. But how?

With Summize, sales team can easily create their own contracts in under two minutes, without needing legal intervention. This not only reduces the legal team's backlog but also empowers the sales team to create contracts independently, helping them accelerate their sales-cycles and close deals faster.

{{testimonial 1}}

‍

Standardised contracts

Manual contracting processes are prone to human error, such as your sales team using an outdated template or simply a team member mistakenly entering the wrong contract details.

Summize's CLM software helps businesses minimise manual errors, ensuring consistent and standardised contracts every time.

Contract creation happens in your familiar business tools (such as Outlook, Teams and Salesforce). Users create contracts from a library of pre-approved templates, therefore eliminating access to outdated versions. Combined with field-mapping, which pulls contract data straight from the likes of emails and CRM deal and opportunity data, your business will greatly reduce the chance of human error.
‍

Uncovered data

CLM software reveals hidden data, helping stakeholders uncover patterns, assess risks and identify opportunities, empowering them to make informed business decisions driven by insights.

Summize’s CLM contract analysis functionality makes the data inside contracts usable and useful. This gives businesses a single source of truth, helping them identify missed revenue opportunities, renewal dates and much more.
‍

Enhanced business efficiency

As a business grows, so does the volume and complexity of its contracts. According to our Legal Disrupters report, 81% of in-house legal professional’s basic contract tasks dominate their daily workload.

CLM software from Summize takes away a lot of the manual burdens, for both legal and non-legal users:

• Contract creation: Master templates and pre-defined fields makes contract generation a two minute job.
• Contract negotiation: AI contract reviews reduce manual tasks by 85%.
• Contract approvals: Summize integrates into popular e-signature tools and automatically sends the signed contract to your repository. This process reduces the manual administration.
• Contract management: Storing all your contracts in Summize’s secure and central repository avoids needing to search around multiple folders for the information you require.
• Contract reporting: Make reporting a quick and useful task when you have Summize’s data and insights at your disposal.
  ‍

Improved internal collaboration

CLM solutions improve collaboration amongst legal and non-legal teams.

Before adopting CLM software, legal teams are often seen as bottlenecks, delaying sales-cycles and hindering business growth. With CLM software's self-serve features and easy contract tracking, businesses benefit from reduced bottlenecks and collaborative contract workflows.

Businesses using Summize’s CLM software empower their sales teams to manage their own contract processes, within the confidence of legal’s guardrails. This reduces the legal team's backlog while enabling the sales team to accelerate their deal cycles.

“Summize gives that level of transparency to the sales team, as well as leadership team, as well as the legal counsel. We're all on the same page now as to exactly what's in the queue and exactly what the priorities are.” Leah Samia, VP of Sales Operations at Ikon Science.

Start seeing your CLM benefits with Summize

Many CLM solutions will appear to have the same benefits, but it is often how these benefits are achieved and accessible which is important.

“As a Customer Success Manager, my role is to make sure our clients see long-term success with their Summize CLM. How do we do this? We have regular check-ins and quarterly improvement plans to ensure you are getting the most out of your CLM and seeing tangible, positive return.” Eden Cunningham, Customer Success Manager at Summize.

At Summize, our Customer Success and Implementation teams prioritise your success, ensuring you quickly experience the benefits of your CLM solution, while also setting you up for long-term value.

Begin your Summize journey today and start seeing your CLM benefits in no time. Book a demo with our expert team to get started.