Legal Agreement Collaboration Everywhere, All at Once

In many organizations, the legal department is at the center of the agreement process, playing a critical role throughout the contract lifecycle, from creation to termination. Over time, this lifecycle has grown increasingly complex, requiring cooperation and coordination among multiple teams and stakeholders.

Unfortunately, too many organizations still use manual and disconnected agreement processes, which reduce efficiency, invite errors, and delay deals and revenue. Meanwhile, legal is forced to get involved at every step, increasing frustration and costs. 

When multiple versions of an agreement coexist, legal teams feel pressure to be everywhere, all at once—a practical impossibility (except at the movies). That’s why many organizations use contract lifecycle management (CLM) software to bring multiple teams into one collective agreement universe, where everyone can collaborate and, ultimately, agree.  

What is contract lifecycle management?

Contract lifecycle management refers to the process by which agreements are created, signed, managed, stored, and fulfilled. It reduces bottlenecks and improves efficiency by handling all contract activities, including drafting, negotiation, and integration with other systems.

CLM can aid in managing all common agreement types, including:

• Purchase orders

• Sales contracts

• Loan documents

• Real estate contracts 

• Lease agreements

• Employee offer letters 

• Change orders 

• Nondisclosure agreements

Gartner defines CLM software as "an application that proactively manages contracts from the initiation stage through the award, compliance, and renewal stages.”

Many agreements require multiple drafts, legal reviews, and signatures as they travel through your organization and other contractual parties. Traditionally, organizations performed contract administration tasks manually. A contract was printed, signed with a pen, scanned, and returned to the sender.

Today, advanced CLM solutions help businesses oversee the entire contracting process digitally. Digital management increases transparency across the organization and connects the steps of the contract management process on a central platform.

iCIMS uses CLM to support growing agreement volume with less legal intervention

Docusign hosted a panel discussion at the 2024 Momentum conference about best practices in facilitating agreement collaboration across the organization. The session featured Courtney Dutter, general counsel and chief compliance officer at iCIMS, a leading provider of talent acquisition technology, with over 3 million platform users spanning more than 200 countries and territories. Sandy MacDonnell, senior legal operations manager, and Taeler Gannuscia, senior product marketing manager at Docusign, led the conversation. 

iCIMS sought to streamline its contracting processes and reduce manual effort for its legal department. One critical criterion it established for any contract management solution was the ability to integrate seamlessly with Salesforce. The company selected Docusign CLM for this reason, and its unique features that enhance agreement collaboration across the enterprise.

iCIMS implemented CLM’s Self-Service Forms for commonly used forms like waivers and non-disclosure agreements, allowing sales and procurement to negotiate minor details without legal involvement. 

Docusign CLM also enables iCIMS to collaborate effectively through seamless cross-platform integrations, allowing key stakeholders to review agreements directly in the editing applications they use daily.

With CLM’s automated workflow routing feature, legal can orchestrate reviews, changes, and approvals across functions and departments while maintaining version control and security.

Using Docusign CLM, iCIMS attained massive growth while ensuring an excellent customer and internal stakeholder experience. While the company’s enterprise agreement volume has grown by over 500%, only 22% of agreements require legal intervention. Even better, 72% of legal-reviewed contracts no longer require attorney review, allowing their valuable time and expertise to be reallocated to more complex contract reviews and projects.

Best practices in CLM implementation

For organizations looking to implement CLM, here are some best practices to ensure a smooth project that will have a lasting impact and positive ROI:

• Begin with people and processes before adding technology: For a new solution to be effective, it must gain acceptance among the team. Identify process bottlenecks and establish shared goals before introducing any new tool.

• Implementation is short, but adoption is forever: The agreement lifecycle has many steps and touchpoints, so it’s best to take a phased approach to implementing CLM. Address specific use cases and gather quick wins in the early stages of deployment to ignite stakeholders’ enthusiasm and unite them in a shared purpose.

• Effective agreement management is a team sport: Everyone involved in the agreement lifecycle—from sales to procurement, legal, and finance—has a critical role. Make sure to include representatives from all key stakeholder groups early in the project to garner buy-in and achieve effective change management.

• Inclusive teams operate at a higher level: Legal is the hub of the agreement process. Leverage this power to unite everyone—across departments and functions—to optimize agreement management.

Docusign CLM

Docusign CLM allows you to streamline the contract lifecycle by automating manual tasks, orchestrating complex workflows, and enforcing compliance. This functionality is available in CLM and core business systems like Salesforce, Coupa, SAP and more through best-in-class pre-built integrations. Enabling automation across the entire agreement process can accelerate time to revenue, optimize agreement value, and eliminate unnecessary risk.

To learn more about how Docusign CLM can transform your business and agreement processes, check out Docusign’s ROI calculator, created in partnership with Forrester, to estimate the potential value you can expect from deploying CLM in your contract management workflows.