Why CLM software can save your budget

Contractual agreements span the entire business, not just the legal department. They are the powerhouse of every business transaction, defining relationships, rights, and responsibilities.

Unfortunately, contract processes can be manual, complex and include an element of risk. This not only slows down sales cycles but can also create internal friction, bottlenecks and delays between legal and the rest of the business.

Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions have been designed to mitigate such problems. But are they worth the investment and the time it takes to implement?

Let's take a look.
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What is CLM?

Firstly, let's recap what CLM is all about.

Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is an end-to-end solution that digitalizes and automates the contracting process through each stage of the contract's lifecycle. Contract Lifecycle Management is a key business tool that helps all areas of the business maximize value and savings across their contract processes.
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Should you invest in CLM software?

Investment in new software always needs careful consideration. You should think about the need for the software, who it will benefit and if the overall cost of the tool can create a positive return of investment.

When thinking about your initial investment in a CLM tool, first think about your contracting pain points. For example:

• Have you ever had to create or review a contract and experienced a slow approval process?
• Has your contract been held up due to errors or out-of-date information?
• Have you encountered delays in sales cycles due to bottlenecks within the legal team, and perhaps it cost you the opportunity entirely?
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If you’ve faced any of the problems above, then the short answer is yes, you should invest in CLM software.

CLM software is a beneficial tool for the whole business. It addresses business-wide inefficiencies and help you make better-informed decisions from your contracts. From automating and accelerating the contract lifecycle process, to providing accurately summarized contract and key information at the click of a button.

But what about the cost?

Like any software, CLM requires budget to implement, which requires buy-in from senior stakeholders.

As humans, we are innately skeptical. Continuing to use existing processes feels safe and doesn’t involve any additional costs. However, this doesn’t account for the drain and missed chances from your current inefficiencies and poor procedures, including:

• Wasted resources
• Lost opportunities
• Delayed revenue
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This outlook in today's tech-first world is counter-productive and will incur more costs than a CLM implementation. Inefficient processes often lead to bottlenecks in cycles, compliance issues and increased risk. All of these factors add up. According to research by EY, 59% of Business Development professionals said that inefficiencies in the contracting process resulted in lost opportunities.

Consider every part of your business that interacts with contracts. Every pain point, inefficiency and risk presents a new opportunity to deliver better results and savings for the team and wider business.

For example, consider the following inefficiencies:

• Has your sales team ever experienced problems closing a deal due to delays in the creation, review, or negotiation of a contract?
• Are all your contracts fully compliant and up to date with your company terms and positions?
• How much time and resource does the legal team spend on contract management?
• Are you successfully managing the financial and legal risks of all your contracts?
• Is your legal department seen as a blocker by other departments?
• How often does the business miss auto-renewals?
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It may take more than a simple proposal to convince your business that a CLM solution is a wise investment. But now that you have identified the pain points in your current process, you should be able to easily highlight the value that your company will get in return from implementing a CLM.
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Calculating the ROI

Taking the time to measure CLM's financial ROI before purchasing the software will show how its adoption can help your entire organization deliver more efficient services while maximizing profitability.

We've managed to close deals about 40% faster, and we've shaved the deal length down to 4 months from 8 months. So, the business is loving us right now.

Martin Cotterill, General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer at Thought Machine
Explore Thought Machine's customer success story >

To help you determine whether a CLM solution is right for you, take a look at our helpful stats that can help you determine the ROI of your CLM.
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CLM benefits for the entire business

Proving the value of a CLM to the rest of your business usually comes down to two simple things: time and money. By implementing a CLM solution, the whole organization will reap time and cost-saving benefits. But the benefits don't stop there!

Take a look at even further ways your business will benefit from CLM software:

Reduced risk:

• Automatic reminders save your business from unnecessary renewal costs
• Contract summaries create smarter business decisions
• Automated red flags easily ensure every contract is fully compliant
• Improved transparency into your contract portfolio
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Enhanced business efficiency:

• Faster processes and fewer bottlenecks improve internal business relationships
• Self-service empowers commercial users to create, request and track contracts
• Streamlined workflows track and accelerate a contract throughout its lifecycle
• Automation frees up legal resources from dealing with low-value, manual tasks
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Faster and improved revenue generation:

• Eliminate delays in the sales process and get to revenue faster
• Reduce erroneous payments
• Improve and accelerate your contract negotiation cycles
• Enhance your business' tracking capabilities throughout the contract lifecycle

It's simple to use and manage, and has completely changed the way we interact with our contracts by improving collaboration between the legal team and the wider business.

Zak Daliri, Global Legal Director at UzerZoom
Take a look at UserZoom's success story >

Choosing your CLM provider

Once you have concluded that CLM is a good investment for your business, you need to choose the most suitable CLM provider for your business' use cases.

By partnering with Summize, businesses not only simplify and accelerate their contract lifecycle with the tools they already know and love, but the average Summize customer begins to see value in as little as four weeks.

We were able to implement Summize within three weeks, and the quick adoption speaks volumes.

Lynette Mapp, Head of Legal at Asset Reality.

Summize implements its CLM directly within existing tools to ensure maximum adoption by legal and non-legal teams. This integrated approach is critical for implementation success, saving your business crucial time and money on unnecessary wasted resource.

Summize clients see tangible benefits, including:

• ‍Improved legal efficiency: Improve your legal team’s efficiency by capturing all legal requests through everyday business tools (Outlook, Teams, Slack and more) to effectively manage workload.
• ‍Faster revenue generation: Increase department budgets by improving your deal management using our self-serve features, available to all areas of your business.
• ‍Shorter contract cycles: Accelerate your contract creation and review cycles so that your sales team close deals faster, with our contract review functionality that cuts down on 85% of the manual work.
• ‍Smarter business decision-making: Enable better decision making and improve your negotiations with actionable insights and contextual summaries using our AI-powered contract analytics.

Getting started with CLM

Often, businesses believe that once they have signed on the dotted line to purchase a CLM solution, the process is over. The people, process, and tech elements are frequently overlooked and it’s not enough to get just one of them right.

At Summize, we are passionate about this concept. That’s why we’ve designed not only the best CLM solution in the market but also an implementation program with you in mind.

The Customer Success and Implementation team at Summize have been fantastic. They were incredibly supportive in our onboarding and roll-out process and are always on hand to help us ensure we see real results.
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Gemma Griffiths, Head of Operations at The HCI Group

Our services are delivered by an onboarding team comprising of Implementation Managers and Legal Engineers, supported by Customer Success Managers. We recognize all customer projects and environments will differ, and our team will work alongside yours to design and implement a plan that meets your specific requirements.
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Explore Summize for yourself

At Summize, we recommend demoing our CLM solution so that you can see the tool in action and ask our Contract Experts any questions you may have, before you commit to the whole CLM buying process.

We will also work with you to put together a business case, so that you have the guidance to convince your team and stakeholders about your CLM investment.

Book your initial 30 minute conversation and Summize demo below.