Streamlined collaboration between stakeholders, AI-enabled search and analytics , upstream and downstream integrations with applications and databases, and people-based workflows are all areas of opportunity to prioritize.
2 in 5 companies are looking for more capable solutions, and more than half plan to increase spending on contract management solutions over the next three years.
Weaknesses by stage of the contract process
To better understand the problem, Deloitte first created a standard framework for how modern teams complete deals, deconstructing this end-to-end workflow into eight distinct stages: initiate, develop, iterate, negotiate, sign, inventory, analyze, and implement. And in speaking to interviewees, it became clear that it wasn’t just deal management issues that were widespread, causing problems at every step.
Examples of each step in a contract workflow:
Getting started: 62% of respondents have difficulty locating and accessing previously approved contracts for reference
Often, the easiest way to start a new contract is to review completed contracts, either with the same company or for a similar service. But if these documents are not available, they will not be useful. New agreements must be created from scratch, which requires many more resources up front and can also translate into additional internal review cycles at later stages.
Develop: 45% of respondents need to manually add information to contracts that already exist in systems
Every time contact preparers manually complete work that could be automated, they’re wasting time. They’re also creating opportunities for errors if data isn’t copied completely or pasted into the wrong location. While a slim majority of respondents have created an agreement process that automatically populates agreements with existing data from systems of record, nearly half still need to prioritize this step to catch up.