Have you decided that contract lifecycle management technology is the best solution to address your organization’s contracting pain points?

Before you jump into test-driving solutions, it’s important to understand the specific needs and commitments across your organization. Assessing challenges and ensuring internal alignment can create a more successful contract lifecycle management (CLM) technology experience.

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Here are a few important factors to keep in mind during your buying journey: 

1.     Do prioritize challenges and define what success looks like in a timeline that makes sense for your organization.

It’s hard to solve all contracting problems at one time. In order to ensure a smooth and timely implementation of a contract lifecycle management solution, it’s important to first identify the most pressing challenges your organization is facing.

Is it most critical, for instance, to reduce contract cycle times? Is it imperative to improve compliance or increase contract visibility? Are there specific deadlines you need the system to be up and running by?

When you have a target list of needs and a timeline in mind, it’s much easier to evaluate potential solutions based on their ability to help you efficiently achieve those goals.

2.     Do identify the level of involvement required by IT.

 A solution shouldn’t necessarily require heavy customization by your IT team, but integrating with your existing technology ecosystem may need some IT support. Before you go too far down the purchasing path, you’ll want to ensure you have the internal resources and expertise needed to implement and maintain the new CLM technology and that the solution you’re exploring is compatible with your existing tech stack. 

Buying a CLM solution and then realizing that you lack the necessary infrastructure to implement it quickly can be extremely frustrating and is something you want to avoid.

3.     Do assess how you might leverage AI as part of your CLM process.

AI-powered contract lifecycle management systems can transform your static contracts into dynamic, searchable data. This technology offers employees great support in reducing the amount of tedious, manual tasks needing to be completed each day–such as the need to go through contracts and cut and paste important clauses and deadlines. However, humans still play a central role in all contract decision-making. 

Think about how you want to leverage the data that AI-powered CLM solutions can extract and what systems you would need to implement to ensure you are using the technology effectively.

 4.     Don’t fail to identify key stakeholders.  

It’s critical to ensure expectations are aligned across leadership and end-users. And remember, when implementing a CLM solution, you need to identify a de facto project manager to run your CLM implementation who can make the right decisions and keep things going at an efficient pace. 

Getting that point person involved in the research process can ensure a smoother implementation when you do decide on a contract lifecycle management solution.

 5.     Don’t rely on sample contracts from vendors for demos or proofs-of-concept.

 Sample contracts may only showcase a limited set of features or capabilities. This can make it difficult to evaluate how the CLM technology you’re considering will perform in real-world scenarios or how it will integrate with your existing systems. 

Sample contracts may also not allow you to test specific scenarios that are important to your organization, such as complex workflows. It’s better to test out products in real-time to see how a solution actually operates with your own contracts. 

Access Your CLM Buying Checklist

Want more tips to think about as you consider what contract lifecycle management system is the right fit for you? Dive into Evisort’s buyer’s guide for evaluating and selecting the best CLM solution for your organization.

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