Contract Center: The Hat-Trick of Business Value
Blog: OpenText
Date:
Fri, 06 Mar 2015 09:06:00 GMT-05:00
From:
bwick
A “hat-trick” is something good that happens in threes, typically
three scores in a single game in hockey, soccer (football for those of
you outside the U.S.), and cricket (for those really outside the
U.S.). Being a bit of a sports fan, this is the first thing I thought
of as OpenText launched our Contract Center today.
Contract Center is a new
contract lifecycle management solution that brings together our
Process Suite BPM platform with our Content Server ECM system, and
wraps those up in an application that includes contract lifecycle best
practices, processing functions, workflows, and user interfaces. It is
an enterprise-scale platform for sell-side contracts, buy-side
contracts, and all types of legal agreements.
The hat-trick is due to the fact that Contract Center
provides three types of benefits to an organization,
including top-line benefits, bottom-line benefits, and
security/regulatory benefits. Many software solutions claim to have
all three—but really don’t.
Score number one includes the top-line revenue
benefits of effective contract processing, especially on the
sell side. Shorter contract development and execution times due to
direct input of approved clauses and phrases, automated negotiation
cycles with customers, notifications around contract renewals, and
generally a more efficient, effective, and customer-friendly
contracting process means buying relationships get off on the right
foot and stay that way.
Score number two is the cost savings, which are even
more significant. Usually very highly paid legal resources are
creating contracts, are involved in negotiation and amendment, and are
joined by a significant amount of resources facilitating manual
approval cycles, leading to a very labor-intensive and expensive
process. In addition, Contract Center captures meta-data about
contracts, so order volumes and renewals are tracked and alerts are
sent so organizations can maximize the value of their contracts in
terms of volume discounts, incentives, rebates, and on-time renewals.
A side benefit of this automation—besides the savings associated with
reducing time and people—is the transparency. With Contract Center,
users can see exactly where a contract is at any stage in the process,
and what is needed to move it forward.
The third score to make the hat-trick is that many organizations have
internal information governance mandates or regulatory
requirements for contract processing, which are both *very*
hard without an automated and flexible system. Contract Center is
completely integrated with the industry-leading Content Server
repository, which provides complete control of a contract at every
stage of its lifecycle, and includes strict authentication and
security, full auditability, version control, and retention and
termination when appropriate. Compliance and security are very
expensive and inconsistent without a system such as Contract Center,
and the penalties for not getting it right includes fines,
suspensions, and the inability to produce documents for
litigation—adding up to extended time in the penalty box for the
management team.
The system can be augmented with OCR/ICR functionally via our Capture
Center product and contact composition via our StreamServe product.
These are integrated out of the box and allow organizations to craft
the right solution for their specific needs.
Contract Center takes something very expensive and important for an
organization and makes it automated and secure, and it’s flexible
enough to meet the needs of a variety of organizations and contract types.
With our ability to improve the top line, reduce the bottom line
(together to increase profits), and manage compliance, I’m sure even
Wayne Gretzky would be impressed. As the record holder for the most
three-goal games in an NHL career (with 50 total), I’m sure he’s had
some pretty big contracts in his lifetime as well. Hmmm, maybe I’ll
give him a call…
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