Contract Assistant Blog
3 big things contract innovation awards tell us about contracts
Recently the International Association for Commercial & Contract Management (IACCM) released its list of finalists and winners of the 2014 Innovation Awards, complete with case study summaries. For anyone having anything to do with contract management (and even those who don’t!) the case studies serve as a reminder of the very tangible and real value […]
Vendor managers need to be seen and heard
One of the interesting aspects of contract management is that you don’t need to be a “contract manager” to be knee-deep in contract management. As the makers of Contract Assistant software, we know that the range of titles of users runs the full gamut of conceivable titles: from every “assistant” title to every C-suite title. […]
Pressure builds on general counsels to do more with data, contracts
As if general counsels and corporate law departments weren’t busy enough, new demands on GCs are coming from two related areas: data analysis and contract management. GCs are already coping with a long list of demands on their services: growing regulation, a riskier world of cyber theft, and more-complex international deals. But the growth in […]
Hope is not a good contract management strategy
Sometimes big deals with service providers are so important they become, in effect, strategic partnership deals. Then something goes wrong. But it doesn’t happen quickly and it doesn’t happen obviously. Just slowly, over time, the ties that bind don’t bind so well and then both sides end up regretting the deal. The next step is […]
This deadline mistake will blow your mind
Let’s face it; missed deadlines are a part of life. We set goals with good intentions, and work toward them. Most of the time, missing a deadline isn’t always a big deal, but in contracts, missing deadlines can be a very big deal. Take, for example, what happened to the world’s biggest exporter of dairy […]
The surprising connections between proposals and contracts
In most businesses, the job of writing proposals is usually left to sales people or their managers. This is understandable, but it’s also a bit of a shame because employees outside of sales are not exposed to a great lesson: what value customers place on your company. When writing proposals, you very quickly learn that […]
Keep your board informed of key contract dates
It’s great to hear endorsements from our customers, but this comment really brings home a very important point about our contract management solution. Here’s the feedback from customer Valerie Russell of Onslow Memorial Hospital (OMH): “I would like to add that the software enables OMH to organize and control the contracts as well as allowing […]
Three cheers for contract management managers
Recently the CEO of the International Association of Contract & Commercial Management, Tim Cummins, has been blogging on the top 10 issues of contract management. Here’s a somewhat condensed version of these 10 items: Should legal/law departments “own” contract management Does contract management software serve any purpose? What’s the difference between contract and commercial management? […]
Contract management is for dysfunctional companies too
If you are considering buying contract management software, but think your company is too dysfunctional to implement it, take heart. I can assert with some (very minor) authority that as a former business reporter I wrote about many businesses and more than a few had some kind of dysfunction. That didn’t, however, prevent them from […]
Winning at contract management: The devil is in the unit cost
Unit costs can be squirrely things. If you’re a contract database administrator and you don’t validate or confirm invoice unit costs with contractors, at least with minimal regularity, database financial information may be out of date or inaccurate. And what’s the point of a database if it’s not accurate? From our experience here at Blueridge […]