The CLM blueprinting methodology for mid-market/mid-size clients

What’s great to see (and why I’m in the job that I am), is that there now seems to be a general acceptance, particularly after the upheaval of Covid-19 and the ramifications of poor contract management, that CLM deserves more of a focus.

We’re particularly seeing mid-market/mid-size businesses starting to recognise that they, even with leaner sales/procurement functions, would derive benefits from looking at their CLM framework. Perhaps this is because it was more likely for businesses of this size to have been hit harder in Covid by not having had tight contract obligations meaning they lost out (e.g., they received no compensation when their supplier wasn’t able to deliver on time), or they lost out on revenue by not processing a new sales contract in an efficient manner, or very simply they did not have a repository of all their contracts, so couldn’t find them to check their obligations in the first place. Covid-19 showed that there is a cost to a business, of whatever size, of doing nothing within CLM. The greatest competition to change and attempted improvements is the desire to keep the status quo, so a business needs to show that this status quo costs them, and costs them big time.

As a result, perhaps you have been tasked with the very broad task of ‘go investigate how we could improve our CLM’.

Let me help you break down this task.

You know you have a problem with your contracting – we can help you articulate this.

You know there are benefits to be derived from looking at your CLM framework. We can determine and quantify these with you. Think governance, resource efficiency, speed to value, risk management, managing value erosion and improving ease of doing business.

It’s important to emphasise here that CLM is enterprise-wide, since a contract is owned by the business (sales or procurement) user, with input from Legal if/when needed. So, this means that the benefits to be derived that we’ll help you define should cover a range of stakeholder groups across your organisation.

Sounds great right?

Well, the pushback we often get however is ‘tech enabling this sounds great, but it could be a huge investment of both time and cost to get to the end goal, is there a way I can realise benefits quicker to test the theory of this since there is limited appetite for full scale transformation, but we recognise the need for change’.

Yes, there is. Conducting a CLM Tech Pilot using Deloitte Legal’s blueprinting methodology. 

Mid-market/mid-size businesses don’t always need all the bells and whistles that CLM systems can offer. Sometimes for businesses of this size starting with the foundations and basics using market standard workflows can deliver a lot of the benefits they need.

CLM Technology Pilots for a long time have been the recommended first step for a CLM transformation (a real production environment using real contracts, as opposed to a proof of concept that is a test system only). Pilot CLM on a small scale, prove success, and then roll-out to a wider audience. This approach will ensure buy-in and support for your CLM implementation by bringing key stakeholders on the journey and appease those ‘laggers’ who are resistant to change. Start small before growing something big.

So, a successful pilot is the end goal, but what is the best way to get there?

CLM Pilots often still involve lengthy discovery periods to understand the current state of a company, develop requirements and decide on scope. Now, clients can use Deloitte Legal’s blueprinting methodology to enhance and simplify their initial pilot phase to get to a minimal viable product quicker, more efficiently and at a lower cost up-front.

Think of your CLM pilot as an upcoming holiday – yes, something we all work towards when we’re at work!

So, you’ve pinned down your dates for the holiday, you know it’s going to happen, and you’ve got the time off work. You know where you want to go, but you have no idea how to get there or what you want to do while you’re there, and it is fast approaching. The goal is to get to your end destination, balancing time, cost and ease of travel.

You could a; do lots of research from various sources and book the flights, hotels, transfers and general logistics yourself, wading through advice that is often conflicting. This would sap a lot of your valuable time, taking days/weeks alongside all the other priorities in your life.

Or b; you can purchase a package holiday to fast track the above exercise. This would be leveraging the experience of others that know the key requirements to look for, have done this many times before for others so know where to get the information, and can provide you with the best options for you based on your requirements. So, your flights, transfers and all logistics are all sorted for you, and when you get to the hotel, you’ve got the all-inclusive experience! You can enjoy your holiday knowing that the hardest choice you’ll have to make is what time you want your breakfast/lunch/dinner/drinks, but they are included when you turn up to the restaurant.

At Deloitte Legal, our CLM blueprinting approach is your package holiday, including the all-inclusive hotel experience. It is an enabler to rapidly deploy CLM over 6-8 weeks following standard workflows, pre-defined requirements and an agile implementation approach in sprints based on our global experience. It is the most effective and streamlined way to organise and experience your holiday, sorry, your CLM Pilot. Indeed, mid-market/mid-size clients are often better suited to leverage the market standard design and requirements within our blueprinting methodology, rather than build heavily customised CLM solutions that larger organisations often go for.

We have 3-4 modular options of the most common ways that organisations start their CLM implementations. This rapid time to value pilot with pre-defined design and workflows dramatically reduces the effort required in the upfront discovery, since there are a controlled number of customisations allowable for the client. This allows clients to prove success on a smaller scale, and then allow them to request a larger budget for the full-scale CLM implementation that can be expanded across different regions/business units in the future. This approach often is more feasible for mid-market-mid-size clients who often find it harder to secure large, multi-year budgets and therefore need to prove in-year value quickly.

The first CLM vendor we developed the blueprinting methodology for is DocuSign CLM, based on our experience implementing this product on over 300 projects globally. The methodology has been designed with Legal and Sales departments in mind with pre-built integrations like Salesforce and eSignature. This is particularly relevant for mid-market/mid-size clients whose Salesforce instances are more likely to be out-of-the-box and less customised, meaning they can take advantage of this standard integration with Salesforce. This design was intentional, recognising that CLM transformations are often part of Sales or Legal department transformation initiatives, or linked to wider organisational digital or efficiency initiatives. Using the CLM blueprinting methodology will support the wider transformation initiative by allowing Sales and/or Legal to pilot CLM quickly, digitising simple and repeatable contracts, build out a searchable contract repository, and therefore show tangible benefits to key stakeholders.

We’re very excited about this methodology – that’s why we’re hosting a webinar with DocuSign in the coming months to discuss how to accelerate your CLM implementations, with blueprinting being a key enabler to this. We will release the registration link very soon.

If you’re already interested, reach out to us to start the conversations, and understand the packages available within the blueprinting methodology. Each package has a defined number of templates included, which impacts timelines and costs. Implementation timelines start from as low as six weeks for the lowest complexity package, so more than ever it is time to consider using Deloitte Legal’s blueprinting methodology as your package holiday to ensure your holiday is as relaxing and as successful as it can be.

Deloitte Legal works with many vendors of which DocuSign is one. For more information about any of our alliances, please contact Tom Brunt and Catherine Poole.

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