Does Modern Sales Contract Software Fit Your Company Strategy?

To deliver value to your organization, technology has to contribute to broader company goals, objectives and initiatives. If there isn’t clear alignment, you’ll be fighting the current to drive adoption and the implementation won’t be successful.

If you’re considering a solution to streamline sales contract work, you’ll want to examine how it will impact current goals for your specific line of business and the company at large.

Company goals that can be positively impacted by sales contract software

Your company likely has a set of strategic goals. Here are some common examples of broader initiatives that can be supported by investment in contracting software:

• Improving customer, employee, vendor and partner experiences: In a Forrester study, 79% of firms said that improving customer experience was a high or critical priority. Many are using contracting technology to achieve that goal, automating the creation, negotiation, signing, storage and delivery of important business documents.A digital process gives every involved party quick access to professional contracts, giving them the ability to interact on any device at any time. That experience is clearly superior to ink-and-paper transactions or a mishmash of manual copy/paste text. It’s also expected by employees, customers, vendors and partners today.
• Increasing revenue: Contracting solutions can directly impact revenue goals by closing deals and recognizing revenue faster. One IACCM study found that companies can increase revenue by over 9% with more efficient contract management. When contracts can be signed quickly, customers have less time to rethink their purchase decision and you can begin delivering value.
• Increasing productivity: Employees always have a lot to do and not enough time to do it all. By reducing the time it takes to complete an agreement, technology can free up employees to spend more time on strategic activities that move the company forward.
• Leading a digital transformation: Many organizations are using digital transformation to modernize how they do business. Contracting technology is critical to so many business processes, so it’s a core part of that  evolution. It can streamline workflows throughout the organization such as sales, employee onboarding, vendor management and more. 

All businesses want these advantages, but most focus on achieving one or two priorities at a time. If your organization currently has plans to improve one of these areas, contracting technology might be a great way to achieve that goal while laying solid groundwork for future benefits.

If your company is currently focused on issues that don’t require better agreement tools (i.e. employee growth, internal structural changes, product diversification), then it’s fine to table this discussion until you move on to new goals.

When company goals do and don’t fit with contract software

Flexential is focused on providing great IT infrastructure solutions, optimizing customers’ critical applications and forming strong relationships with customers. Recently, the company needed to integrate several acquisitions. Modernizing and centralizing the sales quoting process aligned with the company’s relationship and integration goals. Company leaders discovered that the sales process wasn’t creating positive experiences, so they rolled out a contract lifecycle management (CLM) solution and integrated it with their configure, price and quote (CPQ) software. Now Flexential has an all-in-one contracting solution and the sales process is centralized, accessible and transparent.

The results have been impressive: The sales cycle is 25% faster, employees are more productive because they are doing 75% fewer manual transactions, and there have been zero document errors. Read the full story here.

On the other hand, a Fortune 500 company focused on developing new products and going through a big reorganization won’t see as much impact from contracting technology on these goals. It could support improved productivity and drive innovation, but overhauling the contracting processes isn’t a priority given the company’s focus on product development and organizational structure.

For this company, it’s still important to ask the relevant questions about its contracting process. The answers may suggest that the right thing to do is wait until some other goals have been met. It’s still beneficial to align contracting processes with broader company strategy. If that technology is assessed now, it will be easier to dedicate resources for an upgrade later.

The importance of alignment

Contracting tools can bring significant benefits to any organization—but those benefits will only materialize if that technology aligns with the company’s overall goals. Based on current trends, including a shift to remote work, many companies have goals that focus on experience, transformation and growth. Contracting software can play a critical role in achieving these goals throughout your organization. 

Fill out a simple checklist to determine if contracting technology is a good fit for your sales, HR, procurement and legal teams.

This is part two in a five-part series to help determine if you should deploy an agreement/contracting solution. It covers questions you should consider before contacting a vendor to ensure your company gets maximum value from the implementation. Read Part 1.