Contract management software drives compliance
Savvy buyers use contract management software to manage global risk.
By Maria Varmazis -- Purchasing, 11/15/2007 7:00:00 AM
As Tim Cummins sees it, companies using contract management software fall in a spectrum. At one end are organizations new to contract automation, out to achieve the basics—get spend under control, pipe it properly through a larger spend management system. At the other end of the spectrum are best-in-class companies looking to push contract management to new levels of complexity. He should know, since he's the president and CEO of the International Association for Contract and Commercial Management (IACCM).
"The perspective of different organizations in terms of its role and significance is varied," says Cummins. "Many still view it as one of those legally driven bureaucratic necessities, while others recognize that it is a critical underpin to brand image and reputation risk management." Since corporations have vastly different needs when it comes to finding the right contract management software suite, how do you choose?
First of all, where do you stand? Do you have a basic contract management system in place that ties in to a larger ERP suite, or is contract management in your organization still theoretical? If you're starting from zero, as with most software investments, getting up-front results is crucial. Tim Minahan, senior vice president of marketing at Procuri in Atlanta, emphasizes that newcomers to contract management need to aim for quick-hit goals like price volume breaks.
"The greatest initial value folks get out of this is visibility into their agreements," he says. "Study after study illustrates that very few companies have a clear understanding and easy access to all of their contractual agreements." Many software companies offer on-demand programs for fast turnaround time.
Burlington, Mass.-based Emptoris' Senior Vice President of Marketing and Product Management Ammiel Kamon says making the most of these crucial first-step processes is akin to an on-ramp to contract management. Other companies, however, are ready to take their programs a step further, especially if they're global, says Kamon. These companies recognize contract management can be an important part of its global risk-management strategy and want the software to go to "the next level," with features such as active supplier monitoring or multilingual contract administration support. These programs are more intertwined with back-end data from departments like legal and sales, and are often both on-demand and licensed.
Of course, delivery is only one consideration out of many when weighing contract management programs, some of which are listed on the following page. Says IACCM's Cummins: "contracting is more than some unfortunate bureaucratic requirement. It is a strategic enabler, so if you don't understand how your contract procedures and terms affect relationships, you're leaving substantial amounts of money on the table."
| Company/URL | Application Name | Latest improvements to software | Delivery model | Training included? | Pricing model |
| Disclaimer: Software listing includes companies that responded to Purchasing as of October 23, 2007. | |||||
| SAP AG, www.sap.com | SAP xApp Contract Lifecycle Management (xCLM) | Provides contract creation and authoring, repository and compliance management capabilities, including out of the box integration with SAP back ends for compliance. The application can be used for all types of corporate contracts. | Both | Yes | Perpetual license or subscription-based |
| Procuri, www.procuri.com | Procuri TotalContracts | Recent release includes enhancements such as the ability to generate on-the-fly contract approvals; ability to have user-selectable styles, fonts and colors; multi-language support; conversion to .NET and MS SQL 2005; global document repository; and the addition of a "My News" page that allows direct communication from Procuri to customers via the solution's home page. | On-demand | No | Annual license |
| SciQuest, www.sciquest.com | SciQuest Contract Manager | Contract manager provides enhanced reporting capabilities and seamless integration with SciQuest's e-procurement solutions, giving greater visibility into goods and services spending. Housed in a centralized repository, this information, along with proactive alerts for key dates and contract milestones, enables organizations to negotiate volume disounts and favorable terms and conditions on contracts. | On-demand | Yes | Annual subscription |
| IASTA, www.iasta.com | Iasta SmartSource | Enhancements have been made to all areas of the eSourcing functionality. Contract management received many feature upgrades in searching, triggers and reporting. Individual user controls and filters also have been increased. | On-demand | Yes | Subscription or annual license |
| Ketera Technologies, www.ketera.com | Ketera Contract Management | Support for defining an organization hierarchy to control access and visibility of contracts across the organization, as well as an integration framework for transactional applications (procurement/invoicing) to integrate with Ketera Contract Management, which enables companies to validate transaction documents (Pos/invoices) against contracts to control maverick spend. | On-demand | Yes | Typically quarterly subscription |
| Ariba, www.ariba.com | Ariba Contract Management | Ariba plans to expand the functionality of its enterprice and on-demand contract management solutions on both the buy and sell side. New features will include digital signature provider support, server side PDF generation, integrated contract management and supplier performance management, contract risk analysis services, shared services based contract services (negotiations, clause management, forms management), and procurement content contract compliance. | Both | Yes | Licensed and subscription |
| Oracle, www.oracle.com | Oracle Procurement Contracts and Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise | Create and enforce better contracts. Customers can standardize contract processes, reduce time to contract and drive contract compliance. | Both | No | Perpetual license or term licenses |
| Emptoris, www.emptoris.com | Emptoris Contracts | Provides contract management, visibility and controls that deliver stronger agreements, procurement savings, and increased supplier compliance. Emptoris Contracts spans every stage of the contract lifecycle, from proposal and contract creation, to negotiation and compliance enforcement, through contract amendment, renewal, and ongoing analysis. | Both | Yes | Subscription |
| I-many, www.imany.com | I-many Contract Authoring | The next generation of I-many Contract Authoring allows organizations to automate the entire contract management continuum from create, store and manage to alerts and notifications on key business events and milestones. The solution allows users to easily configure workflows to streamline and improve contract processes, reducing the time it takes to finalize an agreement. | Licensed | No | Subscription and license |
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