Modern sourcing professionals are more than just order takers. They are there to lead significant business initiatives such as “digital first” or “digital transformation” that advance their companies. In fact, according to research from the Hackett Group, procurement...
A sophisticated contract lifecycle management (CLM) system may seem like a luxury for some procurement departments. But the perils companies face without such technologies are significant and justify the need. Managing such risks is top of mind for global chief...
Apttus was at the ProcureCon IT Sourcing conference in Denver last week, meeting with hundreds of procurement managers from leading companies. When you hear procurement, you may think that it’s a drab routine of stamping documents at a desk all day long. But today,...
As we covered in a previous post, blockchain can help execute contracts more smartly. In fact, blockchain-based contracting could yield significant benefits for procurement. As a shared, secure record between parties, blockchains are a way to introduce transparency...
Procurement is a necessary and valuable part of a well-managed organization. But procurement doesn’t operate in isolation. Rather, it must collaborate with different parts of the business, including finance and the legal team. Yet without integrated, automated...
Under a pile on a desk. On a USB stick forgotten in a filing cabinet. Buried in an inbox with 100,000 other emails. Is this where your contracts are? Do you really know? There are many places where contracts can get lost inside a company. Here at Apttus, many of the...
As procurement becomes more strategic and collaborative, many companies are poorly positioned. Consider companies that design their sourcing process on multiple, siloed systems of record, e.g., ERP or PLM systems. These systems are not built to enable engaging,...
Everyone knows contracts are important. They define your business: what you are selling, what you are buying, who you employ and partner with, and much more. It makes sense that you would want to use your contracts as effectively as you can, but at many companies—even...
These days technology is automating everything: customer service, investing, and even cooking burgers. Now you’ve decided to automate how you create contracts, so your staff attorneys can focus on more important matters than repetitive document creation. Great! It’s...
Here in the Apttus blog we don’t spend too much time tooting our own horn. But today, I just can’t help myself. HBR Consulting, in its 2017 Law Department Survey of more than 300 major companies, found that Apttus is the most trusted provider of contract management...
The Legal Tech industry is a fast-paced world. It’s constantly evolving and reinventing itself. Here’s the top 15 legal conferences to attend in 2018, to help keep you on pace with the industry. Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) EMEA Institute...
Sales professionals need the best of everything to operate at at full capacity: they need the freshest leads to call, the latest products to sell, and the most current tools to facilitate selling. Globally more than one million sales professionals are lucky to have...
Lights, Camera, Contract! The soaring orchestra of a great soundtrack; the irresistible dances of a Bollywood hit; the slapstick humor of a comedy great. When you see these classic movie moments on the big screen, it all seems so effortless. But creating great...
“You’re the boss.” Hearing those three words is the goal of many corporate lawyers. But advancing to the top rung of the legal corporate ladder isn’t easy—and once you’re there it doesn’t get any easier. The top lawyer in a company is usually called the General...
As the premier organization for contract management professionals, the International Association of Contract and Commercial Management (IACCM) is on the cutting edge of research and best practices in contracting. The IACCM Americas conference, held on the Toronto...
The biggest change in accounting in many years is fast approaching. For public companies, ASC606 will take effect on December 15 this year, while private companies have another year to comply. Outside the US, most companies must comply with the very similar IFRS15 on...
Even though Accelerate 2017 has come and gone, some of its most important lessons are just starting to sink in. One lesson is that contract management for the entire enterprise is now a best practice, according to panelists from three industry-leading companies. The...
Las Vegas is home to the biggest acts, the most luxurious hotels, the hottest restaurants, and the highest stakes in the world. Last week, it also features the largest-ever gathering of legal operations leaders. The Corporate Legal Operations Consortium...
Day 1 of Accelerate is done! Even though we’re only halfway through the Quote-to-Cash event of the year, we’ve already had an incredible amount of excitement. Here are just a few of the great sessions we saw today. Get Your Fingers Dirty: Build Apps with Clicks Not...
Negotiations might seem like the Wild West to most people—a place where you do whatever you can get away with. But if you’re a contract attorney, you know that negotiations are subject to legal rules and codes of conduct. And yet there are gray areas. Recently, more...
Image Source The world of contract management got a boost from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Monday. That morning, the Academy announced the 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström “for their contributions to contract...
If you are a corporate lawyer, you know that law departments have been cut back for years. Too often, companies see their in-house counsel as a cost to be managed rather than a source of bottom-line growth. How can you make your department a revenue driver for the...
Selling is hard. It’s just phenomenally hard! You can have the best product in your industry, but that may not matter if your selling process is too slow. Half of the time the first vendor to respond wins the business—not necessarily the best vendor. Reps are paid to...
What would you think about a baseball manager whose only accomplishment is getting all his players into the dugout before the game? You’d probably think he isn’t a very good manager—and you’d be right. Getting everyone to show up is just the first step in managing a...
Most sales leaders have been cultivating the least effective type of sales rep. Are you one of them? If that statement seems surprising, then you haven’t read The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation, the extensively researched study by Matthew...
Four out of four legal operations leaders agree: 25 years after Enterprise Legal Management systems first appeared in the market, most legal work and legal processes still take place outside these systems. Why? Without the right technology implementation processes,...
Once upon a time, the law department was a much simpler thing. A man in a three-piece suit, sitting at a mahogany desk, writing a contract on a typewriter. Things sure have changed. Today’s corporate legal department is diverse, technologically savvy, fast-moving—and...
What is a Contract For? Most business leaders would answer that a contract is designed to protect the company in case of trouble: What is the governing law? What are the terms of arbitration? Where are legal notices sent? Yet only 0.007% of contracts lead to a dispute...
As we countdown the days to Accelerate 2016, the Quote-to-Cash event of the year, that will take place at Pier 48 in San Francisco on April 12-14, we will be highlighting different aspects of the event every week in a series we call The Road to Accelerate. Each week...
