Contract portfolios are larger than ever before, and many organizations are struggling to keep up. According to IBM, Fortune 1000 companies now manage an average of 20,000 to 40,000 active contracts at any given point in time.

While you may not have quite so many contracts on your plate (or maybe you do), having a growing contract portfolio causes issues such as poor contract management performance and a high rate of human error.

Meanwhile, McKinsey & Company estimates that suboptimal contracts and poor processes cause organizations to lose an average of 9 percent of their annual revenue.

The good news is that you don’t have to sit helplessly and watch as your contract portfolio balloons far beyond your control. By following the 4 tips below, you can regain control of your contracts and make your contract management processes more efficient and effective.

As companies experience significant growth and hit major milestones in their evolution, they often need to re-evaluate their existing processes and determine whether the way they’ve been operating is sustainable, or if changes are needed. A company going public without a doubt qualifies as a milestone that would lead to this evaluation, not to mention all of the additional requirements and restrictions that come with being a public company. A pharmaceutical company receiving FDA approval for one of their products is another milestone that would lead to an examination of internal policies and procedures.

Xeris Pharmaceuticals experienced both of these scenarios above in a span of just over a year. During this remarkable phase of growth, the volume and scrutiny of Xeris’ corporate agreements would increase exponentially, leading to the need for a more sophisticated system for managing these contracts and the data held within them. 

Here’s a look at how ContractWorks helps Xeris track contract milestones, tighten internal controls, and provide stakeholders with insights into their most important contracts.

The legal landscape is constantly evolving, and those responsible for keeping up need the latest resources and information to be successful in their roles, whether that’s an in-house counsel position, a lawyer at a firm, or another legal function.

There are countless blogs, websites, publications, and organizations dedicated to serving the unique needs of legal professionals. We’ve put together a list of some of the most helpful online resources available for lawyers, legal teams, and in-house counsel.

Across business units, companies are strategically looking at ways to become more effective and efficient, leveraging technology and data to improve operations, glean more actionable insights, and derive other important benefits. In-house legal departments are no exception.

Legal operations analysts and legal operations teams are focused on improving in-house counsel’s ability to do their jobs, transforming key operations so that legal teams can deliver their best results. But because this is a relatively new function, it’s helpful to understand what legal operations analysts do and how their work impacts general counsel and legal operations as a whole.

Contract management is one of the biggest responsibilities for businesses of all sizes. Efficiently managing your contracts has a direct positive impact on your financial performance, your relationships with third parties, and your organizational reputation.

According to IBM, the average Fortune 1000 company may have as many as 20,000 to 40,000 active contracts at any given point in time. With so many contracts and related documents to keep track of, effective contract management is a must.

In this article, we’ll discuss five of the most important traits and skills for contract managers to have, so that you can achieve effective contract management within your own organization.

As the old saying goes, change is constant. This is especially true within the corporate world, where businesses must keep pace with market forces, technological advances, and other factors in order to maximize efficiencies and stay competitive. No department is spared from this ongoing need for evolution, and that includes legal operations.

So how are legal operations evolving? An annual survey with legal operations leaders shows a number of key shifts. Here are three ways legal operations departments are evolving – and the impact these trends may have on resources, processes, and other considerations that impact in-house legal teams.

Contract management can be time-consuming and tedious when left to manual processes, so businesses often implement software to help them take control of their legal documents.

Since so many companies already use SharePoint for collaboration and content management needs, it’s common for these companies to explore whether it can also serve as a contract management system. SharePoint is a great solution for those with basic file sharing and collaboration needs, while dedicated contract management software offers its own set of benefits geared towards helping legal teams store, manage, track, and report on corporate agreements.

The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) recently hosted their largest event of the year, the 2019 ACC Annual Meeting, from October 27th-30th in Phoenix, Arizona. Over 3,000 legal professionals flocked to the area to attend dozens of CLE sessions on matters currently impacting the industry, with a special focus on workplace diversity and equality, legal operations, and technology.

As a sponsor of the ACC Annual Meeting, ContractWorks had a team on site to discuss contract management challenges and opportunities with attendees, learn about the latest industry trends, and present a classroom session on the role of artificial intelligence in the contract management process. Here are the highlights and key takeaways from this year's ACC Annual Meeting.

At ContractWorks, our employees come from a variety of experiences and backgrounds, each with a unique set of skills and talents that align with our overall mission of providing simple, smart document management solutions.

We’re proud of the team we’ve assembled, and we think it’s about time you get to know the people that are innovative, agile, and committed to fulfilling the needs of our customers.

This month we’re catching up with Kristen Johansen, VP Product Development at ContractWorks. Kristen plays a critical role at ContractWorks, working to ensure that the products and services offered align with what customers need to be successful.

Before finalizing a merger or acquisition, contract reviews are a form of investigation. The acquiring business needs to understand any and all contract features that could cause challenges to the business once the deal has been completed. But that’s only step one of the process.

Once the merger or acquisition moves forward, the next thing to do is to address any issues uncovered during the pre-transaction review, and make sure all of your incoming contracts are treated just like any other existing contract in your portfolio. After all, every contract belonging to the target company is now the acquiring company’s responsibility. 

Here are three things you can do to reduce contract risk once the M&A transaction has been completed: