Global Contract Management and Process Improvements

In this webinar, we explore how contracting has changed over time due to the impacts of technology and globalization. We learn how a business gains an advantage across its business process improvements with international contract management services.

How the world of contracting is shaping?

"Market-leading companies with foresight have embraced technology to unify, simplify, and effectively manage their agreements."

- Mark Lessem | Senior Executive Director at Nexdigm

Technology and globalization have led to major improvements and innovations in contracting, making it more reliable. Some characteristic changes include:

• More uniformity across various parameters
• Better contract tracking
• Centralized repositories have made searching documents easy
• Increased reliance on electronic signatures to securely sign contracts
• cloud storage has reduced paperwork
• Data science and Machine Learning make it easy to navigate contracting

Challenges in contract management

Due to the global integration of online and traditional businesses, contracting has also become increasingly international in scope leading to the following challenges:

• Difficult to manage multiple and varied data privacy regulations
• Pandemic has disrupted varying degrees across nations, leading to irregularity
• Different environmental and safety requirements
• Multi-language contracts in nations with multiple languages
• Different governing structures in a country along with business entity formations creates variability
• The difference in contracting structures - whether it is centralized or decentralized

Organizations lose 40% of the value in a deal due to these challenges. Hence, businesses need to adopt a unifying contracting process that considers the above challenges and variations.

How do Global Service Centers combat contracting challenges?

Simple issues like missed deadlines, renewal dates, manual errors, or inefficient data management can cause severe losses to an organization. Global Services Centers (GSC) prove to be an effective way to tackle these issues with the following advantages over traditional paper-based contracting methods:

• GSC deliver by following best practices with the use of technology
• Decentralized processes
• GSC can generate up to 45-50% savings in legal and staffing costs while also helping improve both legal and procurement efficiencies
• GSCs give companies a chance to leverage economies of scale in terms of talent who implement these solutions
• Lower costs of highly qualified labor

How to implement technology in contract management?

Before implementing any technology, ensure you understand business processes clearly. One should optimize them by taking feedback from those involved in them or using playbooks or best practices.

Consider the following factors while choosing a management consultant/service provider and technology to manage contracts:

• The management consultant needs to have broad experience across geographies and sectors
• Good familiarity of the technologies to be implemented
• Knowledge about how and where the technology is to be implemented as per the business case and global interests
• Ability to help businesses onboard immediately such that there is no major disruption and provides flexibility to scale or pivot in future
• Ensure relevant technology support by the service providers are actively in place
• Consider other functional areas and gain their perspective on how implementing a technology will impact their business processes

How to manage a global contracts team?

Once you have the process down and created playbooks, they are integrated. You don't see a change from what may be happening locally within your local country or offshore. It's seamless.

- Cory Sumsion | Senior Director, Commercial Counsel at eBay Inc.

While having the team under one roof ensures collaboration and faster execution, these aspects are not always controlled. But in the case of a global company, time zones, language, and culture create barriers while also increasing response time to queries.

One can centralize their processes to ensure a uniform approach is taken globally and the same training is provided.

In the end, implementing technology for contract management helps you streamline processes and make them scalable across the globe - a key driver for growing your business internationally.