Non-profit reduces time spent on contracts by 25%

The challenge

PCC’s primary focus has always been to provide world-class education through stellar student services. They knew it was time for a change when they realized their procurement and contracting processes were directly jeopardizing this mission.

Prior to selecting Agiloft as their CLM platform, PCC had no central repository to store and manage contracts. They used Microsoft Access, a facilities department project management system, and tracked their contract workflows via email and Excel spreadsheets. While the solutions were good database programs individually, they were complex to program. Only one person in the entire institution knew how to use Microsoft Access, and when they left nobody could access the valuable contract information retained in the system, which led to a major loss in valuable contract data.

With no single repository to manage contracts, there was a severe lack of visibility in procurement. All departments were tracking their own contract renewal dates in siloes and the purchasing department had no way of keeping this information in place with the spreadsheet system.

As a result, contracts were being sent to vendors for signatures before they were even authorized for approval. Staff couldn’t even pull basic reports to see their position in contracts as they had many revenue and non-requisition related contracts that could not go through the ERP system. This created a huge blind spot and led to many contracts falling off the procurement staff radar.

The lack of visibility into contract processing meant significant delays in seeing contracts to completion. PCC’s average time to contract took an average of 55 days. “The amount of time staff was spending just looking out for departments who were calling to find out the status of their contracts [instead of] supporting the education of students in the college. We were hindering the mission of the college rather than helping it,” said Michael Mathews, Procurement and Contract Services Manager at PCC.

“[With Agiloft] we were able to implement only what we needed as we grew and that was important.”

– Michael Mathews, Procurement and Contract Services Manager at Portland Community College

PCC knew the importance of listening to stakeholders and staff, as well as including them in the process of selecting a CLM platform. “We all participated in and looked at what we wanted to get [from a solution] and where we wanted to be. I think it’s critically important to listen to stakeholders and staff to understand their needs,” said Michael.

They knew they needed visibility and accessibility into their contracting process. They wanted a customizable solution that would allow them to build templates on their own terms and conditions. They also wanted a system that could provide data-driven reporting insights to improve the contract management process and empower staff to be more proactive instead of reactive with their stakeholders.

The solution

To help PCC hit the ground running, Agiloft immediately put them in touch with a consultant to start implementing the CLM platform with a small number of users. PCC worked with the implementer to pull all existing contracts they had into a single, central repository. “I can’t stress enough how easy that was for us. Our implementer did all the imports, populated all the fields for us with Agiloft, and worked with us to understand what the fields were,” said Michael.

Implementation with Agiloft was quick and efficient. In fact, PCC finished their initial implementation with e-signature ahead of schedule—right before the pandemic. “When the pandemic hit, we were already automated to the point where it did not impact our contract processing. We were ready to hit the ground running.”

PCC realized the value of having a CLM platform that allowed a scaled rollout. With Agiloft, they were able to stage the implementation process according to their business needs. This level of scalability meant that PCC was able to cover the cost of implementation completely even with a tight department budget. “Because of the way that we implemented, where we had to get licensing for just a few staff as approvers in the system, my budget covered the cost completely. I didn’t have to get a budget augmentation with the way that this is scalable, and it’s been wonderful for us.”

Implementation support didn’t end when PCC was done with the rollout. With the help of responsive stakeholders and accessible training resources, the institution was able to navigate the intuitive interface easily and efficiently. “There’s a wiki that you can go to [learn] about any topic you’re interested in and Agiloft will come up with step-by-step instructions on how to implement single sign-on (SSO) or how to modify a dashboard.”

Since implementing Agiloft CLM, PCC has expanded their functionalities with the CLM platform every year, if not every few months. And they have plans to add more implementations further down the pipeline.

The impact

One of the major challenges PCC faced was the lack of visibility in their contracting process with important data left scattered across multiple management systems. With Agiloft’s CLM Platform, PCC contract specialists have immediate visibility into what specific contracts look like from a single, unified dashboard. Contract workflows have become more efficient as staff can see which contracts are active and others that are in line for approval, with visibility into who has been assigned to each contract task.

This has eliminated major value leakage for PCC. “Because we’re looking at contracts we’ve never seen before, we’re finding significant ways to not only reduce costs, but improve the level of service to the college due to scale.” The Agiloft CLM platform helped the team rework a contract that had them paying three different price points to three different suppliers for the same service being performed at every location around the college. “The consolidation of this contract conservatively saves about $36,000 a year. We couldn’t see this wealth without Agiloft but now that we’re using the system to look at things proactively, we’re able to see this.”

“The consolidation of this contract conservatively saves about $36,000 a year.”

– Michael Mathews, Procurement and Contract Services Manager at Portland
Community College

Another Agiloft CLM platform feature that’s transformed the way PCC works is related contracts. The institution receives a large volume of contracts and are required to track subcontracts, renewals, and amendments. With the related contract feature, they can look within a contract to see its status and entire history with just a few clicks. “All of that on one screen without having to look at a massive spreadsheet and figure out how that ties to one another has been a game changer for how we look at data,” said Michael.

Before partnering with Agiloft, PCC spent too much time on contract administration—taking as long as 55 days to complete a contract due to a lack of visibility on contract status and workflow. After implementing Agiloft, they reduced contract turnaround time by more than 50%. “I mentioned we were over 55 days on average [contract completion] and when we implemented Agiloft last month, it went down to 30 [days] to 21 [days], and we’re significantly lower than that right now and I see this trend continuing.”

Partnering with Agiloft has also empowered PCC to start using their own customized contract templates instead of third-party paper. They initially used supplier paper as it was perceived to speed up the contracting process. But with the ability to create specific templates for each type of contract, PCC has moved to using their own paper. “We’ve grown our terms and conditions. We have standard terms and we have supplemental terms for each contract type.”

All in all, Agiloft’s impact on PCC’s procurement and contract services has improved both strategic and organizational trust. “Procurement and contract services since implementing Agiloft has received more public kudos from virtually every stakeholder that we have. Members of my team thank me almost weekly for implementing the system unprompted. They feel as though they’re adding value to the process instead of policing it.”

Challenges

Loss of contract data from siloed systems

No way to track and monitor contract status

Disjointed department workflows

Lengthy time to contract

No single repository to store and manage contracts

Benefits

Easy and fast implementation

Scalable platform allowed for staged
implementation to fit the organization’s needs

Increased visibility into contract workflow

Saved $36,000 in annual procurement dollars

Reduced time to contract by more than 50%

Access to all contract information from a single dashboard

Able to view contract history, status, and related contracts with a few clicks

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