Contract Lifecycle Management: Why should you use an Implementation Partner?

I’m lucky in that I get to travel quite a bit and meet a lot of different people in companies across the world. As part of that, I get all sorts of questions and reactions, such as:

• Do you sleep?
• I thought you’d be shorter?
• I understand I need to get technology into my contract & commercial management team, but why do I need an implementation partner? I have my own IT in-house and surely the technology partner can help me with my processes and adoption.

To answer those in order: Yes (but I have a secret twin like in the Prestige); Nope, just long arms and a good sense of selfie-angles; and of course you need help! Let me explain–right after I finish this intro.

As I have written many times, Contract Lifecycle Management (“CLM”) platforms are becoming necessities for large, small and everything in-between organisations. Documents need to be stored; data needs to flow across an organisation; standards need to be available, self-service and simple; automation has to be available to you if your company is going to push its legal, commercial, procurement, sales or other “contract operators” into the future (remember I'm the CLM4CXO guy). To be fair, the level can vary depending upon where you are on the journey, but for the purposes of this piece, let’s work with the idea that all mid-market and up companies need to get their CLM tools in the right place.

So here is why you need an implementation partner to help you. I put it in list form, because people seem to like that on the internet.

• ·CLM Technology is an investment–don’t waste it

Apologies if you’ve heard me do this before, but CLM tech isn’t free and the time and energy it takes to install it correctly is not de minimis. You wouldn’t pay for the latest iPhone and use it as a coaster. If the tools are not being used the way they are intended, then all you are doing it turning an analogue problem into a digital one. That is not the digital transformation anyone wants and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen “Tech & Drop” and people wasting money doing implementation for the first time without a partner.

• Big platforms are like big ERP or CRM–treat it like that

Even mid-size implementations require integrations, process change, data migration and all sorts of things which are not part of your BAU. If the reason you are buying a tool is because you are drowning in too much work today and need to get efficient and automated, then please don’t trick yourself into thinking this will be a snap. “Small” tools are >3 months of work and larger tools take a year. The benefits are all there if you do it right, but the effort is real too. Not many companies in 2019 carry a bench of business analysts, free internal IT time and PMOs ready to jump in on this.

• Adoption and change management are real challenges

Adoption, communication and change management are the biggest killers for CLM implementation. Technology companies are really focused on the technical implementation and they staff and focus their teams to ensure that the tech works and is integrated correctly. However, I have yet to see a platform player who staffs a bunch of commercial/legal consultants focused on end-user experience or repeatable trainings.

Also–a dirty little secret–many users of the systems, whether they be lawyers, commercial, contract or procurement, are somewhat technophobes or tech-scarred from using what I would call “sub-optimal” tech. I have seen some companies build amazing in-house tools and I have seen others do not so much. Also, many companies have gone through an implementation by engineers for engineers. Most commercial, contract and legal people have different, tactical challenges which compound daily in managing relationships and they need tools that “get that.” The good thing is that the tech is real and useful. The challenge is getting someone who can translate good tech to good end-user experience. This is the challenge of change management and adoption. This is where the partner comes into play,

• Partners do this multiple times per year, your organisation may do it once

Unless your organisation just loves technology and has an unlimited budget, you probably have only gone through a few CLM implementations in the last few years (and no–Ariba does not count. It is fine tool but CLM is a side business). Also, most companies don’t do a lot of thoughtful stacking. I’ve seen companies accidentally have 3-5 document management tools (quick advice–don’t do that), but companies usually get burnt once and then start to stack their knowledge management, workflow, automation, AI, drafting and other tools the right way. Usually because they learned and have a partner who does this every day, not once an Olympics cycle.

• Platforms are great with tech, not business transformation per se

Ask your platform provider to answer this honestly and I think you know the answer. Yes–they will create great outcomes, get you on the digital highway, improve performance, control, visibility, etc. But are they business process re-engineers? Do they have a team of lawyers, black-belts and procurement people sitting around ready to dig deep into your processes and create optimised models? No. And that is fine. They really shouldn’t. Platforms should be focusing on the tech and how can it be better, faster, smarter.

So, there are lots of challenges with technology implementations in CLM, but plenty of upside to be had. We often talk of this as a three-legged stool approach (customer, tooling and implementation partner). Don’t just go for two. Its gets a wee bit wobbly.