Taeler Gannuscia
CLM + CRM Integration: Improving Collaboration Between Sales & Legal
If you’re reading this, I’m going to guess that your Sales and Legal teams probably don’t collaborate as well as they could. Am I right?
Let’s face it, even though Sales and Legal are on the same team, they tend to have a lot of competing priorities when it comes to contract management. Legal is primarily concerned with risk mitigation, while Sales is all about deal acceleration. So how do they work together effectively? In today’s modern world, all end-users expect speed and visibility, and contract management is no exception. What if I told you there was a way to unite these teams around contract management by meeting them where they are? Hang with me! In this post, I’m going to show you it’s possible with a seamless CLM + CRM integration.
CHALLENGES ASSOCIATED WITH NON-INTEGRATED SOFTWARE
Non-integrated CLM and CRM systems can create some major barriers between your Sales and Legal teams. Some of the most significant challenges include:
COMPETING PRIORITIES
Generally speaking, your Sales team is focused on one major task: closing deals. These highly-motivated and fast-moving individuals want to accelerate each pending deal so that they can turn their attention to the next lead.
Oftentimes, they view their priority as being juxtaposed to that of the Legal team since Legal is often more concerned with mitigating risk. They stringently review each contract in order to ensure that it includes the correct phrases and terms to protect your company’s best interests. Their biggest concern is what if things go wrong.
The truth is, both teams play an essential role. But how do they come together to manage contracts in harmony? Stay tuned to find out.
SLOW DEAL CYCLEs
When your Sales team has to rely on Legal to draft, review, and manage a contract, bottlenecks are created, and sometimes, enemies are made. Most Sales reps view the Legal department as a bottleneck that hinders their ability to close deals and meet their numbers. And when Sales teams become frustrated, they may look for ways around Legal, which can be bad news for everyone involved.
OUTDATED PROCESSES
The antiquated practice of referring every single contract to the Legal department simply isn’t sustainable and can stunt the growth of your organization. Legal professionals are no longer just contract administrators and gatekeepers. They are strategic business partners that need to turn their attention to more value-added priorities while still maintaining contract compliance.
By empowering your Sales team with the right CLM solution, they can manage standard deal agreements without needing to involve Legal. Pre-approved contract templates ensure the right contract is being created. They can also initiate approval requests, swap out existing clauses for pre-approved contract language, and send the contract directly to the counter-party for signature .
ADVANTAGES OF CLM + CRM INTEGRATION
There are three significant benefits to integrating your CLM and CRM platforms. These advantages include the following:
ACCELERATED DRAFTING VELOCITY
When your CRM and CLM software can freely share data, you can dramatically accelerate your drafting velocity. Sales team members can effortlessly initiate contracts from opportunities that are already present in your CRM platform. They can use pre-approved templates and share the draft with prospects without having to go back to Legal each time. Because sometimes improving collaboration means collaborating less, right?
By accelerating the contract drafting process, your Sales team can strike while the iron is hot. They will no longer have to wait days or weeks for the Legal team to review the initial contract draft or wonder where the contract is in its review process. As they say, “time is the killer of all deals,” and waiting for contract approvals increases the risk of a prospect losing interest.
INCREASED CONTRACT VISIBILITY
Your Sales team can manage and track all contract activity directly within your organization’s CRM without having to learn a new system. This will make their daily lives much easier, and improves overall CLM adoption since they can work within the platform that they are most comfortable using.
Once again, this functionality will reduce the workload on your Legal team. Sales teams will no longer have to reach out to Legal every time they need a contract status update. Instead, they can readily access the information themselves.
REDUCED NEGOTIATION CYCLES
Remember what we said about time being a deal killer? Well, you can imagine how Sales teams feel about drawn-out negotiation cycles. When you seamlessly integrate your CLM with your CRM, your Sales team will have access to a variety of self-service tools, such as pre-approved clause alternates to help in the midst of the negotiation process. This means that they can provide fall-back language that Legal has already blessed, keeping the deal cycle moving.
And once the contract details are finalized, Sales can easily send the contract to the counter-party for e-Signature, independent of Legal.
UNITE CONTRACTS ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE WITH MALBEK KONNECT™
It’s no secret that contracts are no longer solely owned by Legal. So shouldn’t CLM solutions support all business users? And when we say support, we mean rich API support for no-code, drag-and-drop integrations with the daily business applications business users spend the most time in. Malbek’s flexible and easy-to-use integration framework ensures all data exchanges are secure and immediate, helping organizations unite the enterprise.
Ready to build the contract ecosystem you need with the apps you love? Learn more about our integration marketplace, Malbek Konnect here, or see the product in action by scheduling a personalized demo.
Contract on!
