Contract Life-Cycle Management: Implementation Lessons Learned

Traditionally, legal and sales departments relied on archaic, paper-based contract management processes to author, edit, negotiate, and execute contracts. These processes were so fettered with inefficiencies and costly mismanagement that highly transactional businesses have begun to purchase contract life-cycle management (CLM) systems to streamline the "quote to contract" process. But not all CLM implementation projects go as planned, and references from the leading CLM software vendors cited numerous gotchas ranging from a lack of process definition prior to engaging the vendor to limitations associated with a "big bang" implementation approach. This report shares the lessons learned that we gathered from these interviews.