Inefficiency in contract management leaves money on the table, finds DocuSign report

About this update from Docusign, Inc.

[{"type":"text","content":"SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- To offer companies insight into the latest trends and best practices for handling contracts in the modern workplace—and to help them optimize their processes as a result—DocuSign (NASDAQ: DOCU) today released the fifth annual \"State of Contract Management\" report. \n\n \nThe report—previously published by SpringCM (the company acquired by DocuSign in September 2018)—analyzes the benefits and pain points of various methods of contract management, and examines employee attitudes towards the role of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). \n\"Agreements and contracts are the very lifeblood of organizations, enabling businesses to run efficiently. But the process of preparing and managing them remains anything but smooth,\" said Scott Olrich, chief operating officer at DocuSign. \"Inefficient tracking methods and human errors are just a few of the ways that businesses are hampering the contract lifecycle. And we intend for this report to help them overcome some of those challenges.\"\nThe findings of this year's report indicate some improvement over last year with respect to the efficiency of contract lifecycle management (CLM) processes. For example, fewer respondents this year (16%) view contract approvals as a \"big problem\" compared to last year (21%). However, given that one of the most commonly reported method for CLM consists of manual inputs into spreadsheets, most companies are clearly still operating with inefficient processes.\nWhen asked about the biggest challenges faced in the contract process, respondents cited the top three as: approvals (at 53%), clause management (33%) and workflow (27%)—all of which could be greatly mitigated by the use of digital CLM tools.\nOther key findings include:\nUsing the wrong tools paves the way for human error and security breaches.Almost 40% of respondents said that human error impacts the contracting process often or very often. Eighty percent of employees admit to sending a contract over email—a platform that can be especially vulnerable to security breaches—and more than 25% have shared contracts via fax or postal mail (34% and 29%, respectively). These methods are inefficient, hard to track and increase the likelihood of a contract ending up in the wrong hands—indeed, almost 30% of respondents have sent a contract to...

More updates from Docusign, Inc.