Today’s post will address the core challenges often faced with post-award contract lifecycle management.
Enterprises deal with thousands of contracts spanning various functions like legal, sales, HR, procurement, and so on. Manually managing this many contracts and tracking post-award contract compliance becomes very problematic.
(In another blog post explaining the benefits of post-award contract management, we explain the term and establish the significance of post-award contract management processes.)
The most common challenges to effective post-award contract management:
Tracking global contracts:
- Organizations doing business globally have a range of stakeholders with varying expectations and needs. This results in different currency formats, varying terms, conditions, and specific escalation/ de-escalation clauses.
Gaining visibility into contracts:
- Contracts are stored in multiple disparate systems across the organization. This leads to a lack of visibility further gives rise to a host of issues. These may include – financial losses due to non-compliance, missed opportunities for revenue capture, and limiting the ability to minimize lost savings.
Measuring contract performance:
- Organizations must develop mechanisms to manage and measure performance throughout a contract’s lifecycle. They need to define quantifiable targets (revenue growth, overall corporate risk, value for money, etc.) and have the means to track underperformance to install corrective measures.
Stakeholder Alignment:
- Amending contract terms and conditions is difficult without a common interface for collaboration among stakeholders.
Managing Renewals and Expiries:
- A common collaboration platform enables a thorough review of auto-renewable contracts. Otherwise, these might renew without any re-evaluation or renegotiation based on contract performance.
The next and final blog post in this series will focus on the ways in which these post-award contract management challenges can be successfully addressed.
Also read: Does Post-Award Contract Management Really Matter?
Learn about Zycus’s Post Award Contract Risk Management Solution.
For more information on contract management, contact us at info@zycusicontract.com.