Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) software is often positioned as the cure-all for Software as a service (SaaS) company woes, enabling teams to get better visibility into their contracts, obtain analytics to determine performance, or get end-to-end support for various internal processes. 

Yet all too often, SaaS companies invest quickly only to find that the rewards are a long time coming. While the initial goal was to accelerate workflow processes, teams are instead bogged down by steep learning curves and other unforeseen hurdles.

In truth, there are many benefits of having a contract management system in place, but it’s not always the best starting point for digital transformation. By starting small and addressing the most poignant pain points first, businesses can gain traction, momentum, and bigger returns. Here’s what you need to know.

Benefits of Contract Management for SaaS Companies

SaaS companies make the decision to purchase CLM software for a number of reasons:

• To free up time for contract drafting strategies that avoid litigation and earn profits
• To keep contract review costs relatively low, allowing the company to scale accordingly
• To route workflows more efficiently and reduce escalations to senior legal counsel
• To ensure legal compliance, avoiding pitfalls like hefty fines, lawsuits, and lost renewals
• To improve tracking and visibility so contracts don’t stall or get lost in the shuffle
• To improve new employee training outcomes via accessible, easy-to-use technology

How SaaS Companies Use Contract Management Solutions

Below are just two examples illustrating the benefits of contract management —specifically in regards to contract review automation—for fast-growing SaaS companies.

• Contract management helps fast-growing SaaS companies scale efficiently. Thomson Reuters predicts we’re entering into a long-term lawyer labor shortage, as law school enrollment is down and 1 in 5 legal grads under 40 are considering leaving the field within the next five years. So, with 200% year-over-year growth, Dialpad’s demand for legal staff to comb through every new contract became a very real challenge. Rather than hiring more in-house staff (adding significantly more salary, hiring, and retention costs) or outsourcing contract review (putting quality and consistency at risk), the leading customer intelligence company chose a different path and leaned on automated technology to help get through the glut of sales documents.
• Contract management reduces contract volume and expedites reviews. SaaS is a highly competitive field, so having a presence at big industry events, trade shows, and conferences is a must for SaaS companies like NetApp. Before employees from the multibillion dollar cloud data management company could commit, the business team needed to sign a sponsorship agreement. The high volume, variety, and complexity of these agreements meant slow, painstaking manual review conducted by members of the procurement team and subject matter experts. “The manual process was a drain on resources that can be better spent on business-critical and value-added work,” said Connie Brenton, NetApp’s VP of Law, Technology, and Operations. “We needed a better, more automated, light-touch solution.” After integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered contract review and negotiation software into their workflow, automated review was conducted 100x faster than traditional manual review—reducing hours of work down to mere minutes. In the end, they concluded that automated review “revolutionized their sponsorship review process.”

Get Ahead with LexCheck—the Simple, Automated Solution

It’s easy to see how the benefits of contract management can prevent hassles from holding SaaS businesses back. For teams managing a high volume of contracts, a SaaS Agreement Checklist can help ensure no critical details are overlooked during drafting and review, paving the way for smoother negotiations and faster deal closures. You need to get a handle on the tremendous volume of contracts coming your way so you can keep pace and close deals faster. And you need a more efficient process that makes daily workloads more manageable for your employees, encouraging productivity and retention.

Here’s the problem: With traditional contract lifecycle management software, there’s a lengthy learning curve. Database-first CLM tools can take months, if not years, to fully implement. With deals moving at the speed of now, there’s really no time to wait.

Perhaps that’s why you’ve put off investing. But there is a better way—and it’s with LexCheck. 

It’s easy. LexCheck’s pre-execution contract review and negotiation solution is ready to use right out of the box. 

It’s automated. Drafts can be uploaded and returned in five minutes—fully redlined and populated with helpful recommendations to guide review and negotiations. Changes can be made with the click of a button and the system’s machine learning capabilities can be fine-tuned to your exact specifications. 

It’s cost-effective. Most significantly, you don’t have to spend months or years figuring out how to reap ROI from your investment. Most of LexCheck’s clients are up and running in a day. With automated AI technology, the system begins churning out value with the first review. Truly transformative results take months, not years. Not only are review times cut by up to 90%, but the overall time-to-execution decreases by a third—greatly accelerating the closing of deals. Shaving two days off the sales cycle with every contract saves the average company $1 million, and shaving 10 days off the cycle saves nearly $7 million in annual revenue.

LexCheck has extensive experience working with SaaS companies like yours. And our product fully integrates with larger CLM systems, whether you have one already or are planning to soon. For most teams, contract review and negotiation are where the most time is expended, so beefing up your capabilities in this area makes perfect sense.