How to Choose the Right CLM Solution for Your Business?

Published By Rahul Asthana    October 18, 2024
18Oct, 2024

Contracts are the foundation of any business. They define relationships, manage risks, and ensure legal obligations are met. However, managing the entire contract lifecycle manually or with outdated tools can lead to inefficiencies, compliance risks, and lost opportunities. Businesses are turning to Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions to address these challenges. 

Choosing the right CLM platform is crucial, as it will streamline contract creation, management, and compliance. This guide explores common pain points with legacy CLM solutions and highlights how modern platforms like Gainfront CLM can eliminate these issues and deliver superior results. 

What is Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM)? 

Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is the end-to-end process of managing contracts through their various stages — creation, negotiation, execution, performance, compliance, and renewal or termination. An effective CLM system automates these processes, improving businesses’ control, transparency, and efficiency. 

Six Key Features to Look for in a Modern CLM Solution 

When evaluating CLM software, businesses should focus on several key features that will ensure optimal performance and usability:

  1. Easy-to-Use Interface: A user-friendly interface is critical for high user adoption and efficiency. A modern CLM solution should have a clean, intuitive design that allows users to navigate the system with ease, reducing the learning curve and avoiding user frustration.
  2. Integrated Word Processing: A seamless integration with Microsoft Word ensures that users can edit contracts directly within the CLM platform, preserving metadata and avoiding data loss. This feature saves time and simplifies contract management.
  3. Secure AI-Powered Metadata Extraction: For third-party contracts, the ability to automatically extract key metadata using LLM and OCR technologies is essential for maintaining full visibility into contractual terms and obligations.
  4. AI-Driven High-Risk Clause Identification: A modern CLM solution should automatically flag high-risk clauses and provide an efficient clause comparison feature, ensuring compliance and minimizing legal and financial risks.
  5. Configurable Approval Workflows: The ability to customize approval workflows to fit the business’s unique needs is critical for ensuring smooth contract approval processes. A CLM solution should allow users to configure workflows quickly and easily, without extensive IT involvement.
  6. Fast and Flexible Onboarding: A quick onboarding process is essential for realizing the benefits of a CLM platform. Look for a solution that offers a fully configurable onboarding process with seamless ERP and other enterprise system integrations.

Eight Pain Points with Legacy CLM Solutions

Traditional and/or legacy CLM solutions present significant business challenges, impacting user adoption, efficiency, and overall business performance. 

1.Poor User Interface and Low User Adoption: Many legacy CLM solutions have outdated, complex user interfaces. This not only frustrates users but also leads to low adoption rates, causing employees to revert to manual processes or workaround solutions, which reduces the platform’s effectiveness

  • The powerful advantage of Gainfront CLM: Gainfront CLM offers a modern, user-friendly interface designed for simplicity and high user adoption. The intuitive design allows users to quickly navigate the system without extensive training, ensuring that businesses fully utilize the platform’s capabilities.

2.Lack of Integrated Word Processing 

Legacy systems often require users to download contracts, edit them in Word, and then re-upload them to the system. This leads to inefficiencies and risks of data loss, as changes are often not tracked in real time. 

  • The powerful advantage of Gainfront CLM: With Gainfront’s integrated Word processing, users can edit contracts directly within the platform. All changes are saved as metadata, ensuring no data loss and speeding up the contract review process by avoiding cumbersome download-upload cycles. 

3.Difficult Metadata Extraction from Third-Party Contracts 

Many CLM systems struggle with handling third-party paper, making it difficult to extract key metadata from these contracts and leaving businesses with limited visibility into important contractual obligations. 

  • The powerful advantage of Gainfront CLM: Gainfront CLM uses secure LLM (Large Language Models) and OCR technology to extract metadata from third-party contracts automatically. This allows businesses to efficiently manage third-party contracts and maintain full visibility into all their agreements. 

4.High Licensing Costs:  

Many legacy CLM providers charge per user license, which can be costly as businesses scale. This creates a financial burden, especially for large organizations with numerous contract users. 

  • The powerful advantage of Gainfront CLM: Gainfront CLM offers usage-based pricing, which means businesses only pay for what they use. This flexible model ensures that costs remain predictable and scalable, making it an attractive option for companies of all sizes. 

5.Limited Clause Comparison and High-Risk Clause Identification 

Legacy CLM systems often have limited capabilities in identifying high-risk clauses or comparing different contract versions, leading to potential legal or financial risks for businesses. 

  • The powerful advantage of Gainfront CLM: Gainfront’s AI-powered clause comparison and high-risk clause identification tools automatically flag risky contract terms, ensuring that companies stay compliant and avoid unfavorable agreements. 

6.Poor API Integration with ERP and Other Systems:  

Legacy CLM platforms often fail to integrate easily with key enterprise systems like ERP, CRM, or procurement systems. This disconnect leads to data silos, resulting in a lack of visibility into critical supplier performance, risk, and compliance metrics. 

  • The powerful advantage of Gainfront CLM: Gainfront CLM provides seamless API integration with popular ERP systems and other enterprise platforms. This allows businesses to gain full visibility into supplier data, track contractual performance, and ensure compliance in real-time. 

7.Rigid Workflow Configuration 

Traditional CLM platforms often have rigid, predefined workflows that are difficult to customize according to an organization’s unique processes and needs. 

  • The powerful advantage of Gainfront CLM: Gainfront CLM allows users to create fully configurable workflows. This flexibility ensures that companies can adapt the platform to their specific approval processes and compliance checks, making contract management more aligned with business needs. 

8.Lengthy Onboarding Process 

One of the most significant pain points with legacy CLM systems is the prolonged onboarding process. Some implementations take months, even years, to fully integrate and configure, causing customer dissatisfaction and delaying ROI. 

  • The powerful advantage of Gainfront CLM: Gainfront CLM has a streamlined onboarding process, getting businesses up and running in as little as six weeks. This ensures quick time-to-value and significantly reduces frustration during implementation.

Conclusion: Why Choose Gainfront CLM?

In today’s fast-paced business environment, choosing the right contract lifecycle management solution is critical for maintaining compliance, improving efficiency, and fostering strong supplier relationships. Gainfront CLM provides a user-friendly, fully configurable platform that addresses all the challenges businesses face using legacy CLM systems. 

With its integrated Word processing, AI-powered metadata extraction, and high-risk clause identification, Gainfront CLM offers an agile, modern solution for contract management. In addition to its flexible usage-based pricing model and quick onboarding process, Gainfront stands out as the ideal solution for businesses looking to streamline their contract lifecycle management. 

Are you ready to transform your contract management process? Contact us today to learn how Gainfront CLM can drive better business outcomes for your organization.