Six things we learned at the Consero General Counsel Conference

Last week, members from the DocJuris leadership team met with dozens of General Counsels at the Consero GC Conference to explore their evolving roles in an ever-changing world of compliance and risk challenges.

Our intent was to get to know GCs and their pain points to ensure that DocJuris software continues to deliver features that will speed up the contract negotiation process without sacrificing quality or accuracy.

We noticed attendees enjoying spending time with other GCs from around the country. As one attendee described the conference, “it was a great opportunity to step back from the fires and connect with peers.”

Throughout the conference, General Counsels had an opportunity to discuss their challenges with peers from other in-house legal departments and compare notes. One hot area of focus was contract management, which was a key area of pain for almost all the companies in attendance.

Recognizing this, we noted what GCs were saying about contract management and considered how DocJuris could solve their specific pain points.

Six Powerful Insights about the State of Contract Management for GCs

Here are six insights we learned about contract management during our time at the Consero GC conference.

1. Contract management is costing in-house legal departments time and money

We discovered that the average contract cycle time for GCs hovers around three weeks. The bulk of the time spent is on contract negotiations and redlines. In addition, the average enterprise cost to process a contract is approximately $15,000, depending on the complexity of the contract being negotiated.

2. Contract volumes (and risk) are increasing

In general, contract volumes are on the rise for in-house legal departments. However, the great resignation is having an impact on how quickly and accurately they get done. In addition, the current legal talent war is resulting in more significant pre-signature backlogs and an overall higher risk than we’ve seen in the past.

3. Procurement v. sales contracts have their own set of challenges

Negotiating and managing procurement vs. sales contracts presents unique challenges for everyone involved. Instead of following a more traditional contract template, they require distinct workflow designs that revolve around different business stakeholders and their respective personas/incentives.

4. It’s challenging to implement CMS

GCs recognize that end-to-end contract management systems could help solve their problems. However, these systems are often expensive and difficult to implement, leading GCs to opt for their tried-and-true (albeit time-consuming) methods. Further, the implementation and evolution of a contract management process is never a “go live” event.

5. Specific solutions are better than general ones

To find a solution for contract management, it’s essential to start by solving a specific pain point. This reduces the cost and risk associated with paying for and implementing a software solution. To begin with, a specific footprint of technology investment is small compared with more extensive, more general software. In addition, organizations can easily remove or replace specific systems without facing an enormous cost in internal time and money.

6. All stakeholders need to be involved in budgeting technology

Building a budget consensus around contract technology needs to be a company-wide effort, not the role of a single person. Every stakeholder who touches a contract at any point during the contract negotiation process should be involved in building use cases in order to rally budgetary approvals and ensure the right technology gets purchased and implemented.

Delivering Results with DocJuris

Speaking with GCs from a variety of industries at the Consero GC conference last week reinforced our commitment to empowering legal and business teams through technology that prioritizes efficiency and accuracy.

DocJuris is a specific contract management tool that solves redline challenges while helping legal and business teams save time and reduce risk. Here are some specific ways DocJuris benefits legal and business teams in various sectors.

• Our dynamic playbooks allow you to easily fast-track third-party contract reviews and incoming redlines to your template.
• With DocJuris, you can keep institutional knowledge, such as previous redlines, in a data-driven contract workspace with annotations and collaboration features.
• Vendor contract management tools ensure alignment and organization when negotiating a contract with third-party vendors.
• Easily fit DocJuris into your existing process using low-code automation tools. For example, adding consumer-grade tools like Typeform can accelerate contracting.
• Roll out in stages by initially targeting a specific contract type or business unit.

Are you interested in learning how DocJuris can solve your specific pain points and speed up the contract negotiation process? Get in touch to access our new ROI calculator to see how much time and money you can save with DocJuris.

‍