This is why forward-thinking organizations rely on robust contract management software to circumvent these potential pitfalls, guaranteeing contract compliance, transparency, and efficiency.

In this discussion, we will delve into the critical role of contract management in safeguarding your business from legal hazards. Furthermore, we’ll explore how the use of automated and efficient contract management solutions can prove to be an invaluable partner in this process. Let’s dive in!

It’s not worth the risk

When it comes to legal risks, the adage “better safe than sorry” couldn’t be more true. No company wants to deal with the ramifications of being subpoenaed. Even short of direct legal action, failing to manage contracts effectively can open the floodgates to a host of potential pitfalls, including losing clients, losing money, affecting company morale, and damaging brand trust. So, before we explore solutions, let’s break down the types of risks in contract management and the possible consequences an organization exposes itself to if it doesn’t take the proper measures.

Beware of common legal risks in business contracts

As the global regulatory landscape continues to grow in complexity, non-compliance with laws and regulations remains a grave concern for a company’s legal department. There are, however, common legal risks that companies need to be aware of and work to actively avoid. Types of risks in contract management include: 

1. Non-compliance with laws and regulations. Failing to comply with industry-specific regulations, local laws, or governmental requirements can have serious consequences. Non-compliance may lead to:

• Sizable fines
• Revocation of licensing/loss of permits
• Criminal charges

2. Breach of contract. Breach of contract is triggered when one party fails to fulfill its obligations as specified in the agreement. Typical contract breaches include: 

• Failure to deliver goods or services
• Non-payment
• Violating specific terms and conditions 

3. Unclear or incomplete terms and conditions. Contracts that contain vague language run the risk of creating confusion and ambiguity. Disagreements can easily arise over the interpretation of contract terms which can spiral into larger disputes or more serious legal battles. 

4. Failure to meet contractual obligations. Either party failing to fulfill its obligations as specified in a legal contract will affect a company’s bottom line. Obligations vary and contractual failures may lead to:

• Delays in project/product delivery
• Non-performance
• Low-quality deliverables 
• Sub-standard services 

Impact of legal risks on organizations

The risks associated with poor contract management can be severe and far-reaching, affecting both the bottom line and the overall well-being of your business. When contracts are not carefully managed, companies may face:

1. Financial losses. Financial losses from poor contract management manifest as penalties, fines, damages, or settlement costs. These expenses can significantly impact a company, potentially reducing profitability, causing cash flow issues, and hindering future growth opportunities.

2. Reputational damage. Legal risks and disputes can damage a company’s reputation and erode trust among stakeholders, partners, and customers. When it comes to business, negative publicity, media coverage, or online reviews can damage a brand image, resulting in a loss of customers, reduced market share, and diminished competitive advantage.

3. Legal disputes and litigation. Contract disagreements can easily escalate into expensive, time-consuming legal battles. Lawsuits, arbitration, or mediation proceedings can drain valuable resources, diverting time, money, and energy from core business activities. These can also disrupt operations, strain employee morale, and negatively impact productivity.

4. Operational disruptions. Legal risks cause significant disruptions to business operations. Whether it’s dealing with regulatory investigations, contractual disputes, or non-compliance issues, organizations may face distractions and increased administrative burdens. Attention and expenses diverted from core activities can impede growth and progress.

The impact of legal risks in poor contract management can be devastating, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises that operate on tight budgets and may not have the means to bounce back.

All of this is entirely avoidable when the right processes are in place to manage contracts and maintain regulatory compliance.

Mitigating risk with proper Contract Management processes

Companies that put the proper contract processes in place can remove much of the risk surrounding agreement structuring. Finding ways to streamline and standardize are integral to lowering the likelihood that essential aspects of a contract may be overlooked. 

Automating security measures

• Adding role-based security to gatekeep who can access contracts. Companies that adopt solutions that allow role-based access can ensure only those with standing read or write documentation or agreement types while denying access to those who shouldn’t be able to view or edit. This prevents proprietary information or sensitive data from falling into the wrong hands.
• Leverage encryption to protect data. If a company is concerned with unauthorized access, it can also add data encryption to protect information end-to-end.

Properly managing contracts over time

• Use of alerts and notifications. Contracts handled manually run the risk of missing renewals, milestones, or dates integral to written agreements. With a trusted contract management process, it’s easy to automate these items so that the correct people get alerts, are assigned tasks, or have calendar reminders so that nothing slips through the cracks. 
• Version control. When multiple parties are redlining the same document, tracking changes is critical to make reviewing and approving changes more manageable. Version control helps all parties avoid missing items, duplicating information, or entering inaccurate information into the copy.

Maintaining compliance across every process

• Templating language. Non-compliance can derail agreements when there is improper language in contracts. Avoiding this is as easy as having a library of templates that contain wording already preapproved by an organization’s legal team. 
• Automation of business processes. When combined with template libraries, contract workflows help ensure no details are missed during negotiation and approvals. These workflows also provide a paper trail for organizations during auditing processes. 
• E-signature approvals. Another way to authenticate contracts and maintain seamless audit trails is to incorporate e-signature technology into your contract management process. E-signatures are tamper-proof, make collecting signatures seamless, and become one single source of truth for all parties.

Modern contract management software combines all these powerful elements under one umbrella to ensure contract creation, maintenance, and renewals are seamless, transparent, and straightforward for all parties. 

Contract Management software: safeguarding your business from legal pitfalls

Contract management software has the potential to be game-changing – especially for teams that handle contracts and compliance manually. Leveraging future-forward technological solutions to contract management benefits businesses as they can streamline their contract processes, mitigate legal risks, and gain a competitive edge.

How is that possible? Through the right balance of automation, transparency, and integrations. Here, for example, are three key features and benefits of contract management software that shield your business from legal pitfalls:

Streamline contract creation and approvals

Businesses no longer need large staff pools to sift through piles of paper contracts or navigate a sea of email attachments. Contract management software provides a centralized contract repository. This central repository allows teams to easily store, organize, and retrieve contracts. With automated workflows and contract drafting, sales teams can save time and ensure accuracy (without each contract needing legal review) by leveraging pre-approved templates and clauses. Having approval workflows and electronic signatures like eSign also streamlines the contract approval process, eliminating bottlenecks and reducing the risk of delays or missed deadlines.

Enhance contract visibility and tracking

With contract management software, companies gain complete control over each contract from creation to expiration. Document version control ensures the right people can always access the latest contract revisions. This helps teams avoid confusion or reliance on outdated terms. Real-time contract tracking and reporting also provide visibility into the status of contracts, key contract milestones, and essential deadlines. Through alerts and notifications, you can stay on top of critical contract events, such as renewal dates or termination clauses, ensuring you never miss an essential obligation.

Ensure compliance with laws and regulations

Think of contract management software as an on-demand legal expert that excels at navigating the complex web of laws and regulations. By integrating legal requirements into contract templates, you can rest assured that your agreements are compliant from the start. Automated compliance checks identify any deviations or non-compliance issues in real time, allowing you to take corrective action promptly. With regulatory reporting capabilities, you can generate comprehensive reports demonstrating adherence to industry standards or governmental regulations. This not only provides peace of mind – it also creates a new level of transparency and reduces legal exposure.

Unlocking efficiency, compliance, and peace of mind with Contract Management solutions

To avoid potential legal woes, consistency is critical, and the best way to standardize contract management (while reducing the introduction of human error), is to automate the process altogether via investment in a digital contract management solution. Automation improves efficiency and accuracy and ensures contracts are completed correctly so that no information is ever missing (which is integral from a compliance perspective). Contract management solutions also help sales teams navigate contracts without having to be legal experts themselves.

Of course, the most compelling case for contract management software adoption is that it significantly reduces the likelihood of contract disputes and litigation. A company will create a solid foundation for smooth and transparent business dealings by centralizing contract processes, streamlining approvals, and maintaining compliance. It saves time in the short term by simplifying contracting processes and removing bottlenecks that can frustrate clients. In the long-term, it avoids future time-consuming and costly legal battles and broken trust between the company and its clients. 

The benefits of contract management software time and cost savings are undeniable. With streamlined contract creation, approvals, and contract renewals, you can accelerate your contract life cycle, allowing you to focus on core business activities. Integration with CPQ (Configure Price Quote), Billing, and Revenue Recognition Software optimizes the renewal process, ensuring revenue recognition compliance, and preventing revenue leakage, boosting overall financial health.

Final thoughts

In today’s legal landscape, safeguarding your business from legal risks should be a top priority. Contract management software emerges as a necessary tool for organizations looking to protect their interests, ensure compliance, foster growth, and align goals. When streamlining contract creation and approvals, enhancing visibility and tracking, and enabling compliance with laws and regulations, contract automation solutions provide a solid shield against legal pitfalls. Contract lifecycle management benefits unlock efficiency, compliance, and security, allowing teams to focus on what they do best – nurturing clients and building toward future growth. Take charge of your contracts and shield your business from unnecessary legal risks with the power of contract management software.

The post Contract Management: shielding your business from legal risks appeared first on DealHub.

The power of the customer lifecycle map

Imagine having a map at your fingertips to guide you through every aspect of your customer’s journey. Being able to see, at a glance, how your customer moves, from brand discovery to product purchase, is an invaluable source of information. With it, you’ll be able to see both pain points and opportunities in order to refine the buyer’s journey. A customer lifecycle map will visualize each touchpoint to understand what your customers need and expect at each stage. By keeping buyers engaged and satisfied, you can seamlessly move them from one stage to the next while fostering stronger relationships and boosting sales – and having a map on hand will give your sales team the guidance they need to engage meaningfully with clients. 

Customer lifecycle stages

Let’s start by breaking down the customer lifecycle journey into key stages. First up, we have the prospects. These individuals know your brand but haven’t yet engaged with you for one reason or another. Once they show interest and are actively engaging with your content, they become leads. Leads who make a purchase become your customers. After that, it becomes a game of retention and turning one-off clients into repeat customers who keep coming back for more. Finally, we have the advocates. These are your loyal fans! They sing your praises and bring in referrals. 

Each SaaS customer lifecycle stage is unique, and understanding them is vital for crafting effective strategies.

1. Awareness (prospects)

At this earliest stage in the customer journey, the ultimate goal is to capture the attention of potential customers and make them aware of your brand. Engaging blog posts, eye-catching social media ads, and informative videos can help a brand or business stand out. It’s essential to build brand awareness and spark an audience’s interest during prospecting.

2. Engagement (leads)

Congratulations! You’ve piqued a potential customer’s curiosity. Once you’ve got their attention, it’s time to nurture the relationship. Companies can engage with leads through personalized emails, interactive webinars, or one-on-one conversations. It is essential to show them that you genuinely care about their needs and build trust along the way.

3. Conversion (customers)

When a lead becomes a paying customer, it’s cause for celebration. However, it’s vital at this stage to deliver an exceptional buying experience to leave a great first impression. During a purchase, provide seamless checkout processes, excellent customer support, and personalized recommendations based on a customer’s preferences. Make them feel valued and satisfied with their decision.

4. Retention (repeat customers)

Repeat customers are the bread and butter of any business. After all, it’s cheaper to retain customers than acquire new ones. Return clients love what you offer and keep coming back for more – which means they love spending more money with you. Keep them engaged and find ways to make them feel valued by offering exclusive discounts, loyalty programs, and personalized communication. 

5. Loyalty (advocates)

The only thing better than a repeat customer is an advocate! They stay loyal and actively promote your brand, increasing organic reach. Engage with advocates by encouraging them to share their positive experiences through testimonials, social media shoutouts, or referral programs. If you continuously nurture these relationships and use their advocacy as part of your awareness strategy, you can create a virtuous circle that constantly adds new prospects and leads into your customer pipeline.

How to conduct a customer lifecycle analysis

Now that the customer lifecycle stages are laid out, let’s dive into how to conduct a SaaS customer lifecycle analysis. 

Start by mapping out each stage and identifying the key elements that impact your customers’ journey. It’s a good idea to leverage technology and utilize tools and frameworks like customer journey maps or CRM software to visualize and track their progression. Customer feedback is critical to integrate along the way. Hearing directly from those going through the customer journey will ensure attention is paid to the right areas to continuously improve the user experience.

The hidden benefits of successful customer lifecycle management 

Successful customer lifecycle analysis and management bring so many benefits to your business. Firstly, you can expect higher conversion rates if you carefully guide prospects through each stage. Your close and conversion rates will improve once you understand your customers’ needs better and address them outright. Also, by focusing on retention instead of acquisition, you’ll experience higher customer satisfaction, observe increased customer lifetime value, and reduce your churn rate. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.

10 best practices for managing the customer lifecycle

Managing the customer lifecycle requires finesse and a well-thought-out strategy. Putting best practices into place enables sales teams to better position themselves to address client needs and focus on retention as an overall goal. Here are some items to keep in mind to ensure you excel at each stage:

1. Identify KPIs and goals

At the outset of your customer lifecycle analysis, clearly define your key performance indicators (KPIs). Align them with your overall business goals to effectively measure success and track your progress in tangible ways.

2. Define your ideal customer and their buying preferences

Understanding your ideal customer means you can tailor your approach to meet their preferences and expectations. Do they prefer self-service options or like working closely with a representative? If you can customize the experience to their liking, you remove friction from the purchasing experience.

3. Map the customer lifecycle

Take the time to make a customer lifecycle map. Build a visual representation of the journey and incorporate each of the stages discussed above. Having a bird’s-eye view enables you to identify any gaps or bottlenecks.

4. Identify gaps in customer touchpoints

What areas need improvement? Go through your current touchpoints at each stage in the customer journey to identify areas needing improvement. Seek opportunities to enhance the customer experience or fill communication and service gaps.

5. Optimize the customer journey

You can streamline the customer journey by removing unnecessary steps or friction points. When looking for areas to optimize, consider what would make it easier for a customer to navigate through each stage to make a purchase.

6. Create and analyze customer touchpoints 

Touchpoints should be compelling and resonate with customers at each stage. To gauge effectiveness, leverage data and analytics, which will assist with making data-driven decisions.

7. Personalize customer experiences

Customers appreciate (and expect) personalized experiences. These make them feel seen and valued. Using customer data enables sales teams to tailor communication, recommendations, and offers.

8. Keep customers engaged and referrals coming in

Remember to engage with your customers even after they’ve made a purchase! By providing valuable content, exclusive offers, etc., you retain customers and keep them coming back. Encourage referrals by offering incentives to both the referrer and the referred.

9. Gather customer feedback

You should regularly seek feedback from your customers. Asking questions about their purchasing experience assists sales teams in understanding pain points and areas for improvement. These valuable insights aid in building refinement strategies and enhance the customer experience.

10. Integrate your tech stack to unify customer data

Technology is your friend. Leverage it to centralize and unify customer data across different platforms. This will provide a holistic view of each customer and delivers seamless experiences across touchpoints.

A neverending journey

The management of your customer lifecycle is an ongoing process. Effective businesses will continuously evaluate and optimize strategies as customer expectations and market dynamics evolve. Those that stay agile, listen to customers and adapt accordingly gain a natural edge in their brand differentiation. And by doing so, companies can nurture and build long-lasting relationships while fostering brand advocates.

The post From prospect to advocate: How to map and manage your customer lifecycle appeared first on DealHub.

Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), which “automates and streamlines contract processes during key stages” of the contract process, is complicated. Manual Contract Lifecycle Management adds further complication; it is a long, inefficient process.

Manual CLM processes waste time and risk many errors. And in a world where customers expect a streamlined, fast consumer experience, anything that wastes time and includes errors also creates a very poor customer experience.

Using DealHub’s proposal software together with the contract negotiation and signing process, eliminates the inefficiencies, helps close deals faster, and creates maximum revenue impact.

How Does Sales Proposal Software Improve on Manual Processes?

You can manually manage your contracts throughout their lifecycle. But manual methods introduce many problems that Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) software eliminates.

Avoid revenue-damaging problems of manual CLM like these:

Slow

Creating the documents necessary for each contract requires the same administrative work each time just to create contracts with basically the same situational language. Sales contacts your legal staff, who then generate all the necessary documents for every single deal. But most of the time, these are functionally the same document.

Complicated

Contract management requires many steps, and getting just one step wrong can undermine the entire deal.

An average contract workflow might look something like this: Every relevant stakeholder at the prospect’s organization must receive both the quote and legal text to examine during the negotiation process. Any changes must be shared to all relevant stakeholders, a process made more complex if departments are siloed and communication gaps must be bridged. Your salespeople must then reconcile all the disparate versions of the contract from all stakeholders into a single, authoritative document. All this even before signing, which requires multiple emails between sales and prospects, not to mention sharing versions to multiple stakeholders within both organizations.

Anything that can make this highly complicated process simpler, more streamlined, and more reliable will benefit your business significantly.

Error-prone

There are too many opportunities for human error to enter the contract lifecycle when you manage the process manually.

In a manual process, sales teams must transfer information from the quote document into a new document for sharing. Then legal must ensure they attach all relevant boilerplate language, accounting for any variations, different jurisdictions, subscription billing variances, and so forth. All the proposed changes must be carefully tracked during the negotiation process, and all relevant internal stakeholders must sign off on dependencies. All of this without mentioning keeping track of all the signatures and filing them properly.

Human employees are essential resources to all businesses. But software can do something humans often cannot: avoid human error.

Time-consuming

Consider how much time your sales staff would have wasted just in the problem areas identified above. Automating routine, repeatable processes not only reduces revenue-killing errors but also gets your sales representatives back to what they do best (and what benefits your business most): selling.

All of these problems with manual Contract Lifecycle Management cause revenue leakage. Stem the leak. Create maximum revenue impact by using next-generation sales software to automatically generate sales contracts.

How Proposal Software Closes Deals Faster

Simplified Contract Creation

Unlike manual processes, which require an employee to create each contract by hand, proposal software can automatically generate contracts based on the characteristics of a deal.

What does this mean?

• Time saved: Sales people don’t need to go back and forth with legal to create a contract.
• Repeated tasks automated: Legal doesn’t need to worry about creating the same contract repeatedly.
• Safety net: Legal can avoid inaccuracies or oversights by setting the software to include certain provisions to match the deal (such as product liability, jurisdiction, etc.) automatically each time.

Easy Redlining and Version Control

Unlike the error-prone process of merging multiple documents with different edits from stakeholders, DealHub proposal software can be easily combined with Contract Lifecycle Management redlining, or collaborative editing, to occur in a centralized, master document.

What does this mean?

• Visibility: All stakeholders can see all the proposed changes. There is no risk of contradictory or unknown changes, because all changes are in one place and update in real time.
• Centralization: All changes are in one place, so the ‘source of truth’ is that single document. The software performs version control, freeing your sales team from this tedious task.

Streamlined Negotiations, Approvals, and e-Signature

Although you may spend just minutes waiting for a colleague or prospect to return documents by email, these minutes add up into a lot of wasted time and lost leads. DealHub’s proposal software + Contract Lifecycle Management solution also performs automatic notifications and includes integrated e-signature to expedite the collaboration process.

What does this mean?

• Time saved: All stakeholders are automatically notified of changes during the redlining process, so nothing falls through the cracks and everyone is instantly aware of what is changed. The final document accurately reflects what each party wants, taking into account the full contract terms.
• Centralization: By using a single ‘source of truth’ document, the most up-to-date, accurate contract is in one place. Management can give final approvals easily and with confidence.
• Nearly instantaneous, secure signatures: When prospects are ready to sign, they can instantly sign just one time. Instead of emailing versions back-and-forth and risking a loss of interest, proposal software captures intent to sign the instant prospects feel it. Additionally, all stakeholders receive the finalized, signed copy of the contract in seconds.

Contact Integration with CRM

Unlike manual processes where a team member must associate contracts and contacts by hand, DealHub’s guided selling playbooks let you integrate with your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool for a more seamless customer experience.

What does this mean?

• Personalization: Contracts can be customized to individual contacts from the first interaction with zero additional work from your staff.
• Time saved: DealHub automates the workflow of generating the proposal by pulling data directly from your CRM. This empowers sales professionals to spend their time selling instead of on paperwork.

Additional Integrations

In addition to all these improvements your business gains from CLM software, DealHub offers many additional integrations to help you do your work better:

• Integrating with Salesforce allows DealHub to auto-sync contact activities, customize your decision-making workflows, and take advantage of interactive content sharing.
• Integrating with DocuSign lets you use a single workflow for each deal, automatically sync documents with CRM, and gather needed signatures electronically.
• Integrating with Freshworks lets DealHub’s powerful CPQ function entirely through the Freshworks CRM and provides prospect engagement readings in real-time.
• Integrating with Microsoft Dynamics CRM reduces time wasted on manual actions, carefully controls all versions, and uses interactive playbooks to guide sales staff through accurate and efficient sales.
• Integrating with HubSpot enables Sales teams to move from quote to close much faster. Using DealHub, they can generate complex quotes within HubSpot CRM, accelerate contract negotiations, and sign off bigger deals.
• Integrating with Gong gives deal execution a whole new dimension when combining DealHub’s buyer journey insights with customer conversation and activity data from Gong.

Close Deals Faster with DealHub

DealHub’s sales proposal software enables sales teams to create customized proposals that help close deals faster than ever before. Together with our digital DealRoom, it empowers visionary leaders to deliver customized content, integrate with eSign, and create a single sales motion and achieves maximum revenue impact.

The post How to Close Deals Faster with DealHub appeared first on DealHub.

IDC research shows sales teams spend 33% of their time dealing with these “document disconnect” issues. That harms revenues by taking time that could be spent selling and instead using it on admin tasks.

Using manual processes for contract lifecycle management (CLM) contributes to this waste. A better way is to create intelligent sales teams that use technology to automate CLM, so sales reps can decrease their admin burden and increase their revenue achievement.

DealHub is that better way!

Why Do Manual CLM Processes Cause Document Disconnect?

Using manual processes to manage CLM makes it easy to make mistakes for a number of reasons.

First, sales reps must handle complexity when selecting pricing and product configuration options. A large amount of options makes it easy for product dependencies to be overlooked, or bundling pricing to be missed.

Second, sales reps that need to send out contracts with their quotes will often lack the expertise to do them properly. Things like product configuration, pricing, and geography can all require specialized terms that are easy for reps to overlook.

Third, company legal and commercial policies change. In some cases, it is possible sales reps will not even be aware of changes. And even if they are, it is easy for habit to cause reps to accidentally place old terms or clauses into a quote without even realizing it.

All of these oversights caused by inefficient manual quoting processes add inaccuracies into the contract that take time to be corrected later.

Keep Sales Reps Selling with DealHub

DealHub is the better way to handle contract management. It improves on manual processes in several different ways.

Automated Sales Playbooks

DealHub gives you next-generation guided selling via our automated sales playbooks. Playbooks act like a ‘wizard’ that asks sales reps a series of questions. Their responses automatically generate quotes that accurately take product dependencies and bundling into account. The quote generated is 100% accurate every time.

“Dealhub represents scalability for my organization in every facet of CPQ; from what do we sale and how do we sale it to data integrity and analytics. Dealhub provides guided selling capabilities improving the time to first sale of all our new sales reps.”

Ulises Gonzalez, FP&A & Revenue Operations

Insert Predefined Terms and Clauses

Once product and pricing is configured, DealHub also evolves how Sales and Legal collaborate on contract terms. Predefined terms and clauses written by Legal that relate to specific products, pricing models, or bundles can be automatically inserted into a quote whenever they apply. No matter how complex a quote is, everything about its terms will be 100% accurate. complex product and pricing mixes are generated.

Approved Legal/Commercial Policies

Once the quote is fully ready to go with all the specific terms and clauses required, DealHub will also add in any of the relevant approved legal and/or commercial policies. No matter what the deal looks like, sales reps can be sure everything that needs to be there from a contractual standpoint is in there.

DealHub does all of this automatically, creating the right contract to send to the prospect. It’s a new era of CLM automation that enables reps to eliminate the time sink of all their manual admin processes and spend their time achieving more revenue.

The post Increase Revenue by Embedding CLM Automation into the Late-stage Sales Process appeared first on DealHub.