‍What is CLM Software?

Legal and business teams can use contract lifecycle management (CLM) software to create, negotiate, sign, renew, and analyze contracts digitally. A unified workspace helps business users manage routine contracts at scale and streamline the contract lifecycle. The process of managing contracts is still handled by legacy enterprise CLM software by many businesses. While CLM systems are capable of storing static files in the cloud, they are still not capable of locating, understanding, and querying these contracts. A lack of collaboration in contracts prevents them from being fully coordinated. Contracts are then scattered across shared drives as multi-versioned Docx and PDF files. Contracts are still created and signed using multiple tools. Contract management remains time-consuming and clunky even with traditional CLM software. There is now a new generation of software providers like Evisort that have reenvisioned contract lifecycle management to provide a unified workspace that allows legal and business teams to collaborate across the midpoint of the contract lifecycle.

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Why is CLM Software Important?

Contracts are the essence of a successful organization. They are the driver of countless business processes, propositions, etc. These legal documents will either save or break any organization. The most challenging aspect of construction, negotiation, and execution of contract lifecycle processes is that they require hundreds of hours of work, multiple collaborators, and multiple departments.

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Benefits of CLM Software

With contract lifecycle management software, every approver across the organization can be held accountable directly from one location to collaborate, negotiate, review, approve, and sign. By removing barriers throughout the contract lifecycle, contract lifecycle management software accelerates the contracting process. Several solutions are available to assist in locating contracts, gathering signatures and approvals, completing the drafting process, and more. Having a clearly defined process online allows things to be completed faster, resulting in a significant reduction in the time that goes into each contract. Utilizing CLM software provides you more time to be spent on legal and business analysis, and allows you to be proactively in charge and always on schedule. Organizations can collaborate and negotiate in one unified workspace, with all edits, approvals, mark-ups, and execution taking place on one platform instead of multiple platforms. There is a considerable amount of time spent on redlining documents, drafting emails, and discussing provisions across a range of channels in traditional negotiations. There is a great deal of labor in the process, as well as inefficiency and bottlenecks. Data dashboards in contract lifecycle management software provide valuable insights and visibility into workloads, distribution, and where in the life cycle delays are occurring. Using data-driven solutions, businesses can also automate their contracting processes across multiple facets of their operations, not just the legal department. With contract lifecycle management software, users can create digital playbooks that are easy to follow. When another deal is made with contract lifecycle management software, you'll have the tools to accelerate the legal process.

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How Do You Choose the Right CLM Software?

Business and legal teams are just getting started with Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions. It can be difficult to choose the right platform for your business. You can simplify the process by following the steps below.

• Identify: Legal teams will require similar solutions, but planning will determine which CLM solution is most suitable for your organization. It is essential to know the legal processes from front to back, and the best way to do this is to record all stops your contract takes. After visualizing the process, you can identify areas for improvement. Are there any steps in your pipeline that are taking longer than they should? What is the root cause and frequency of the issue? These reflections will help you identify the solution.  

• Pinpoint: Focus on one or two areas that need the most attention instead of trying to fix everything at once. Evisort will be able to help you if you identify these one or two problem areas and have a specific outcome in mind.
• Ask: It's important to ask the right questions when approaching CLM vendors and exploring different solutions. Is the platform going to take a long time to integrate, and would your team require training to use the platform? How will your organization and partners be able to access, share, and store data within the network? Are there any updates coming to the platform in the near future, and what changes can be expected in its functionality? You need to understand the vendor's services as clearly as possible, how they can be applied to your specific processes, and what kind of support you can expect in the event of difficulties.