In this week’s installment of the Agiloft Webinar Series, corporate law consultant Ellen Nendorf, JD, interviewed Agiloft Customer, Sharon Ginger a Senior paralegal at Mirati Therapeutics, for her advice and best practices on how to achieve a successful contract lifecycle management implementation. As a veteran of two Agiloft implementations, Sharon condensed her advice into these three points:
- Secure Executive level support:
- Have a plan:
- Keep it simple:
Executive support is essential to set the standard for other employees and encourage user adoption. As with any new system, it takes time for users to become comfortable and every organization has its’ naysayers who prefer the status quo. Sharon says a big factor in improving user adoption came from one of Mirati’s top executives. As one of the first to test out the new Agiloft system, he experienced first-hand the utility of the system Sharon and her team had put in place and was a key supporter during adoption.
To get the most out of your implementation, Sharon recommends sitting down and creating a flow chart of your desired workflow. In hindsight she found that it was helpful to create email groups to determine who needed to know what when and to send a representative from her team to collaborate with other departments to determine what visibility they needed for contracts. For example, before Agiloft, Mirati’s finance team frequently didn’t know about a contract until after it was signed. Even if your end system is something totally different from what you first envisioned, it’s important to have a plan to build from before you start the implementation process.
Building a complete enterprise contracting system from scratch can be overwhelming. To avoid getting stuck in the weeds, Sharon says to start by determining what types of contracts you most frequently process, then determine what information you need to collect to draft them. Mirati launched with 18 of their original 40 contract types. “Don’t be afraid to edit out fields that rarely get populated, so you don’t overwhelm end users with information,” she advises. It’s easy to get stuck on the details, but as the adage goes, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Agiloft’s no-code software gives you the luxury of using trial and error to help you figure out what is important.
Watch the full webinar below, including other insightful takeaways on how to deal with data clean up, avoid bottlenecks, and more on how to overcome and avoid the trials and tribulations of software implementation.
Read more lessons learned on CLM implementation here and be sure to tune into our upcoming webinars happening every week. See our full webinar and event schedule here.
