You’ve found the right supplier, they’ve passed all your due diligence during the onboarding checks, they have proven themselves consistently throughout your sourcing process and you have awarded a contract which has been fairly negotiated and provides value for all parties – so far, so good.

However, there are a number of issues remaining. First of all, a contract is of little value if people in the business aren’t directed to use it. Too often we see organisations with well negotiated contracts locked away in Sharepoint, Dropbox, Excel or even physical filing cabinets, making them completely unsearchable for procurement and legal teams. Good contract management cannot be accomplished using Sharepoint or Dropbox, it takes more than that. Organisations who adopt these approaches only increase administrative burden, cause savings opportunities to go unrealised and open themselves up to compliance risks. On top of this, the lack of a clear process and alerts for monitoring key contract events exposes organisations to unwanted auto-renewals and missed termination dates, often facilitating huge financial losses.

The problem of a lack of visibility extends to the wider organisation where agreed contracts are not presented to users of purchase-to-pay at time of purchase, meaning potentially more maverick spend and lost savings opportunities.