Contracts have long been the lifeblood of any business, providing the terms, pricing and service levels of customer, partner and supplier relationships. With regulatory requirements, risk management and cost control high on executive agendas, many enterprises are looking to contract lifecycle management (CLM) for enhanced visibility, control and performance in these areas. This requires companies to improve the processes and tools they use to manage the various activities involved in contract management, from initial contract creation to measuring a contract`s performance throughout its lifecycle.
"According to two reports recently released by the Aberdeen Group," commented Paul Maddison, MD of Realyst, "there are significant opportunities for improvement in contract management, especially since their research indicated that companies only track, on average, 68% of their customer contacts, indicating that almost a third are forgotten, not being serviced, or properly managed. The following is an extract from their research."
Impact of poor management of sales contracts
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"From our experiences in South Africa, the situations here are no better," continued Maddison. "However, the experienced financial benefits and/or ROIs from those companies recognising the need and implementing a contact management system have been significant and in most cases have materially benefited their `bottom line`."
"In South Africa, an average medium-sized organisation has over 5 000 contracts and there is seldom a single individual in the company having the responsibility for them," concluded Maddison. There is also no system to control them, let alone a capability of being alerted to the numerous triggers hidden within them. Research emanating from organisations such as the Aberdeen Group indicates that implementing best practice contract management processes and technologies yields returns of up to 0.04% of turnover."
Realyst is the leading supplier of contract lifecycle management solutions in southern Africa. Its solution spans the technology requirements and professional services designed to extract the maximum value from an organisation`s contractual relationships and to ensure that the contracting processes support the operations of the business, and that contractual risks are identified, controlled and mitigated appropriately.
For further information, please contact Paul Maddison: telephone (011) 463 5311, fax (011) 463 7179, e-mail pmaddison@realyst.com.
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