If you consider how people often treat business documents, it would appear that it’s common to view them as static items that fulfill a purpose at just a single point in time. As one example, take contracts: while a great deal of effort goes into negotiations, once an agreement is signed, it’s all too typical to file it away and never refer to it again. In other words, many treat the development of the contract as the primary objective, while managing the document after the fact is given little thought.

The right contract management software can be a game changer and a force multiplier for small legal departments. Here are some of the ways that small and medium-sized businesses can benefit by using contract management software.

Business analysts regularly point to improving contract management as one of the largest opportunities within the enterprise to yield savings and improve profitability. According to a review from EY, “having commercially-efficient contracts, effectively managing these throughout their operational life and minimizing waste in business activities with suppliers, an organization can typically save between five percent to 15 percent of contract spend.”

As Artificial Intelligence continues to capture the imagination of many industries, its true potential rests on how it is used. For legal departments, the promise of AI lies in its ability to take intricate, labor-intensive tasks and - through automation and machine learning- simplify and expedite workflows. While the possibilities and promises associated with AI are alluring, it’s important to take a more practical approach when it comes to introducing these new tools to your department.

Effective contract management represents one of the greatest opportunities within the enterprise to reduce business risks and improve profitability – according to one recent survey of federal contractors, a whopping 92 per cent of respondents said effective contract management is “essential” to their organization’s success.

Whether you’re a team of one or twenty, there are certain challenges every legal department faces, and that’s especially true when it comes to contract management. If your old tools aren’t up to the task, or if you see growth and change hovering on the horizon, now is the time to reimagine your contract management.

Considering that the majority of revenues for most businesses are tied to contracts with vendors and suppliers, improved contract management might be one of the simplest ways companies can grow revenues. From paper documents that can’t be readily found and referenced resulting in poor compliance to missed deadlines, contract management in the enterprise is typically rife with problems that can erode value.

ContractWorks helps businesses in the healthcare industry by giving them the ability to reduce risk across their organization by giving them an easy-to-use and secure way to sign, organize, track, and report on the information critical to their success. For Renee Leduc-Pereira, Patient Navigator at Ampla Health, choosing the right option for her team included finding a solution that was easy to use and quick to implement.

Most of the time, sticking with the status quo makes sense: familiar systems and protocols are time-tested and easy to follow. In fact, upending traditional workflows or introducing new tools can trigger fear and frustration, and sometimes a new option isn’t always the best fit.

Knowing what to do with high volumes of paperwork and digital files is a key challenge in the enterprise. Within contract management, records management is an even bigger challenge: between employment agreements, customer and vendor contracts, NDAs and a host of other agreement types, enterprise contract portfolios can consist of tens of thousands of contracts, both current and archival.