Tag: Guest post

Three Challenges to Anticipate – and Avoid – During Your Contract Lifecycle Management Technology Implementation

Posted on September 29, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Today, Onit welcomes Michael Stevens, managing director of Duff & Phelps, as a guest contributor and an expert in contract lifecycle management technology implementations. We announced last week that Duff & Phelps reached the Premier status of the Onit Strategic Alliances program. Duff & Phelps has been a trusted Onit partner since 2017, having worked on more than 20 projects in the U.S. and Europe across various industries such as pharmaceuticals, insurance, high-tech, oil and gas, manufacturing and more.

Managing contracts is a complicated business. The process for even just one contract may often spread across multiple companies, departments, stakeholders, versions and systems. Tracking progress and capturing feedback in spreadsheets and emails rely on manual updates.

And that’s just to get a contract signed.

The management must continue beyond execution to maintenance and renewal. If businesses are not diligent about receiving or delivering everything agreed upon, the advantages gained through negotiations will be forfeited.

More corporate legal departments are adopting contract lifecycle management technology, as evidenced by data and – in my case – experience in the industry. First, workloads are increasing. I’ve heard and seen this during my corporate legal work, but numerous surveys have verified this trend. Second, COVID-19 has impacted general counsel, with this report showing that 67% of general counsel participants consider contracts as a top legal risk in the wake of the pandemic. Finally, let’s look at the numbers. Analysts anticipate that the global software market for contract lifecycle management software will reach $2.4 billion by 2024, growing at a rough rate of 14%.

Altogether, these statistics and trends set the stage for large-scale adoption of contract lifecycle management solutions.

I’ve worked with corporate legal departments on technology implementations for more than 30 years and on over 50 contract lifecycle management technology implementations. My colleagues at Duff & Phelps and I have compiled some of the top challenges to implementation and how to address them.

  1. Legacy Data Migration

There are significant benefits in migrating at least the current active contracts into a contract lifecycle management software and removing them from existing repositories. First, it creates a one-stop shop for users to find existing contracts and request new ones. Second, when doing a new amendment, it is essential to have the original contract and all existing amendments readily available to be able to file the new amendment appropriately. Identifying all existing repositories of contracts is a critical step.

  1. Integrations with Other Business Systems

Every contract documents a business transaction that is being executed by one or more business groups. Those business transactions are often managed in one or more business systems. For example, a sales opportunity may start in the customer relationship management (CRM) system, which leads to the need for a contract. Once the sales contract is signed, order processing and fulfillment may be managed in different systems. For a sales contract, you may wish to integrate with both the upstream CRM system and the downstream order management and/or ERP systems. It is crucial to define all the contract types you wish to automate in the contract lifecycle management software and the corresponding business systems that govern those transactions.

  1. Counterparty Source of Truth (Master Data)

To integrate with other business applications or share useful data with the rest of the company, it is beneficial to integrate with a company-designated source of truth for counterparties. This is a directory of customers, vendors, suppliers and other companies that the target company does business with. Here are the key questions when exploring whether your company has a single source of truth for counterparty and whether it will be useful for contract management.

  • Is there a single source of truth for ALL counterparties or separate sources for customers vs. vendors/suppliers vs. partners/other types of counterparties? Some companies maintain different directories for customers and venders/suppliers. The challenge with separate sources of truth by counterparty type is that sometimes the same company is both a vendor and a customer, thus creating duplication.
  • Do all geographies/business units share the same source(s) of truth? If not, this creates the same duplication problem as above.
  • Does the source of truth contain prospective counterparties and not just approved/active customers and vendors? If it does not contain prospective counterparties, this is problematic for contract lifecycle management software because you need to be able to enter into NDAs and start contract negotiations for other types of contracts with prospective counterparties.
  • Does the source of truth use counterparty legal entity as the foundational data element, and does it capture the relationship between parent and subsidiary legal entities of the counterparty? This is important because contracts are with legal entities of counterparties, not bill-to or ship-to addresses, which are secondary attributes of legal entities. Also, knowledge of the counterparty’s legal entity structure is useful because contracts are often written to allow subsidiaries to operate under the contract with the parent company.
  • How good is the data in the source of truth, and is there a data governance protocol?

Visit here to learn how Duff & Phelps can analyze and enhance how your company manages contracts throughout a lifecycle.

To learn more about reducing costs and increasing profits by automation the contract lifecycle, visit Onit Contract Lifecycle Management. 

About our Guest Author 

Michael Stevens is a managing director of Duff & Phelps and has been helping global companies improve contracting processes and systems for the majority of his career. Stevens is a part of the Duff & Phelps practice group that helps clients with a range of operational improvement and compliance initiatives including contract management, information/document management and governance, legal department operations, intellectual property and merger and acquisition integration.

The Global Spread of Data Privacy Regulations and Their Potential Effect on Legal e-Billing

Posted on September 24, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

Gartner estimates that 50% of the world’s population will have personal information covered under local privacy regulations similar to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) within two years. Indeed, governments worldwide, including Australia, Canada and Brazil, are creating new privacy laws or updating existing ones. States in the U.S. are actively legislating in favor of this, with California, Maine and Nevada enacting comprehensive privacy laws.

While this represents a positive to individuals’ data protection, it adds a layer of complexity for companies working across states and countries. Jane A. Bennitt, founder of Global Legal Ebilling and president of the LEDES Oversight Committee for 14 years, talks with us about a development in European Data Privacy that directly impacts legal e-billing.

Q: Tell us about your e-billing and technology experience.

Bennitt: I have nearly a quarter-century of hands-on experience in implementing legal technology, and my specialty is global e-billing. Regularly I work with law departments, insurance claims organizations, law firms and vendors needing assistance with workflows, compliance, automation and metrics. With the nature of my job, I research rules and regulations which apply to electronic invoicing for my clients.

Q: What did you discover recently when looking into EU data privacy laws?

Bennitt: The U.S. government routinely requests information on users from large corporations like Google, Facebook and others. Based on a case out of Ireland, the European court has invalidated the data privacy shield that allows the transfer of personal information on EU citizens to U.S.-based servers. Contractual-based data transfer from the EU to U.S.-based servers is still allowed, which is fortunate because that is the basis for data transfer in legal e-billing. But that also may be challenged in courts.

Q:  What are the implications for corporate legal departments?

Bennitt: Data privacy litigation is hot across the globe. More countries are considering and enacting stricter data privacy regulations, and it is not limited to the EU. I predict there will be a time when there are similar requirements all over the world. The California Consumer Protection Act, which went into effect on 1 Jan 2020, offers protections modeled on GDPR, for example. These regulations provide more comprehensive protections than seen previously,  especially with GDPR. We’ve seen companies hit with massive fines for non-compliance with GDPR and we will see more in the near future.

If your corporate legal department is involved in e-billing and cross-border operations, find out where your e-billing data is hosted. You may need to consider storing e-billing data on multiple global servers in jurisdictions with stringent data privacy regulations. If you’re based in Europe, have a server in Europe. If you’re in Brazil, have your data stored in Brazil or South America.

Q: What advice do you have for corporate legal departments?

Bennitt: I’m not a lawyer, but here are common-sense steps to take to protect your e-billing and its data:

  • Talk with your e-billing vendor and find out the steps they have taken or are considering regarding compliance to regulations such as the GDPR.
  • Reach out to corporate counsel and look at your contracts. Make sure you have covered all the bases for contractual-based data exchange with your e-billing vendor. Also, consider your employee contracts to ensure they allow for the collection of this type of information that may survive their employment tenure.
  • Contracts between legal e-billing vendors and their clients should identify the type of personal data collected and include a clause allowing data transfer.
  • Outside Counsel Guidelines should similarly identify the personal data collected and grant permission for this collection.
  • Companies should proactively explore options if contractual-based data transfers are invalidated. Better yet, work with your e-billing vendors. It’s better to work proactively.

Thanks so much to Jane for sharing her insights into e-billing and regulation trends. If you’d like to contact her, you can reach out via LinkedIn or email.

To learn more about legal e-billing and legal spend management from Onit, visit here.