Integrate Contract Management with ERP to Enhance Efficiency and Productivity

Integrate Contract Management with ERP to Enhance Efficiency and Productivity 01 scaled

Have you ever wondered why even the most cutting-edge, high-profile contract lifecycle management (CLM) initiatives fail? All that money, all that top-notch technology, all that time, they just spilled into nothingness! 

As much as we ignore it, the truth stares us clearly in the eye. We expect contract lifecycle management (CLM) to work as an island. We assume it is just some magical switch we need to flick, and there would be light all around.

ERP – the missing piece of successful CLM

Robust contract lifecycle management (CLM) solutions can turn everything around. But everything works in collaboration. Especially when the ERP piece of the contract lifecycle management (CLM) puzzle is missing, without a well-glued connection to ERP, even the most promising contract lifecycle management (CLM) endeavors can end up in a damp squib. It’s mainly because:

  • No contract lifecycle management (CLM) can function without adequate support on documents and preceding processes that ERP provides
  • Contract lifecycle management (CLM) is one part of the enterprise-wide chain, and ERP connects to this chain at several points
  • The post-CLM results matter only when ERP can take advantage of that visibility, control, and analytics
  • Every business function draws its data from, and gives to, some ERP pipeline – CLM has to integrate well here
  • No matter what project the contract lifecycle management (CLM) is being administered for – it will tie into the relevant ERP process- sooner or later

Industry watchers agree on welding CLM-ERP 

According to Gartner Research, most organizations are early on their contract lifecycle management (CLM) maturity journey and often prioritize specific parts of the CLM process. They do so when selecting to address specific departmental pain points—for example, contract storage or repository and reporting to organize and track executed contracts.

Forrester’s ‘The Contract Lifecycle Management Landscape, Q1 2023’ also points out that the rise of new market entrants offering no-code, multi-tenant software-as-a-service platforms pours in a lot of that flexibility and interoperability for CLM to collaborate and report across multiple areas of the business. But this also requires legacy vendors to increase usability, streamline upgrades, and simplify deployment to compete. Contract lifecycle management (CLM) has strategic value, but vendors must help customers realize it. It has to be utilized fully, and only then contract lifecycle management (CLM) can help drive enterprise value and business growth. After all, as Forrester reminded well, customers are looking for this strategic value to help secure the budget. Yet, many of the vendors in this market are still stuck pitching efficiency gains of contract automation. What is also worth noting is how more organizations adopt a single contract lifecycle management (CLM) to support buy and sell-side contracts. This is a way to reduce technology debt, consolidate the number of vendors, and gain more value from their investment. Finally, it’s hard to deny that contract lifecycle management (CLM) is increasingly shifting from pre-signature to post-signature activities, with new stakeholders like security, risk, and finance officers seeking visibility and insight into the total contract portfolio.

As we can surmise, contract lifecycle management (CLM), without an enterprise-wide perspective and context, will fail to generate the intended outcomes. That’s why you need a partner who is not a standalone contract lifecycle management (CLM) specialist but someone with a good grip on enterprise technology from a strategic angle. 

CLM with a helicopter-view

You need a partner like Proen that helps contextualize the CLM effort within the existing IT fabric of any enterprise. It can assist in developing and implementing a comprehensive contract lifecycle management program, either to enhance the existing model or to build one from the start—and that’s precisely what many enterprises fail to attend to when they launch any CLM. The oversight of a poor CLM-ERP handshake is erased with a cohesive implementation supported by robust policies, the upskilling of your team, and the efficient deployment of tools and technology to facilitate the process.

ProEn believes in facilitating contract collection from multiple sources, like legacy systems, archives, business users, and stakeholders. It also links contracts–especially dependent areas and work orders- and consolidates documents to create complete agreements. As a result, Proen is distinct and impactful – mainly because of its expert capabilities to integrate into all major ERP, CRM, and spend management systems.

It’s a solution that spruces up CLM- but without forgetting that an ERP is already in place. It does not sideline or offend ERP. Instead, it takes it along in a friendly and seamless embrace—to help you generate the impact, speed, agility, and returns you want from contract management. 

For more information, talk to our experts today. 

For additional information, read – How Can You Use ERP to Manage Contracts

What are the most important contract management workflows to automate with ERP?

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