Survey Monkey

When Survey Monkey was asked to describe the challenges before implementing a CLM solution, the resounding word was VISIBILITY. Since many departments rely on Procurement for product, resource, and service agreements, it was a major challenge to maintain visibility into contract status for so many agreement types without a central, searchable repository.

Solution

Effective CLM solutions empower business users to not rely on legal as much. When users understand what they can and cannot do within the system, they have the guidance and confidence to negotiate certain types of contracts themselves. Plus, self-service contracts make all the difference in getting deals done faster.

After Survey Monkey selected Malbek as its comprehensive CLM solution, the Procurement team was one of the first to see value.

• Contract Templates: The Procurement team began by identifying where they were seeing the most volume on the contract spectrum. Starting with software, professional services, and marketing purchases as the core areas of focus, contract templates were created to outline these transactions at a high level with room for customization as needed.
• Clause Library: Building upon the standardization of Survey Monkey’s positions, the next step was to create a full clause library, further empowering the Procurement team to utilize standard pre-approved language without having to go back to Legal during each negotiation.
• Coupa Integration: With contracts being managed and stored primarily in Malbek, the team wanted a way to access its supplier and purchase requisition data in Coupa without duplication or manual entry. With Malbek Marketplace, they integrated the two systems seamlessly.

Results

Implementing new technology was only a small piece of Survey Monkey’s contract management transformation. Beyond the adoption of a new tool, the real game-changer was the development of new processes facilitated within Malbek, that improved collaboration between Legal and Procurement.

First, by standardizing complex contract processes with templates and a pre-approved clause library, contract cycle times have been reduced by 50%.

Second, eliminating the use of multiple contract sources and transitioning to a centralized repository has reduced risk and simplified version control. Now, there’s no need to remember where the last version of a contract was saved or who negotiated what. Everyone (based on their permissions) has full visibility into contract workflows and can quickly review status updates and approvals in real time.

Lastly, Procurement and Legal now speak a common language and collaborate seamlessly within one platform.

With built-in, pre-approved clause language and standardized workflows, calling upon Legal for help is now the exception, not the rule. Sometimes improving collaboration between teams means reducing the need for collaboration altogether, so stakeholders can shift their focus to larger initiatives. When the two teams came together to identify gaps in the contract management process, they were able to configure workflows in Malbek that they could grow into, instead of out of, protecting against the need to reinvent the wheel each time.

Legal Operations also implemented Malbek to support its contracting initiatives, and both teams agree that the power of the platform lies in its ability to scale, meeting the unique needs of each business unit within the same organization, uniting the enterprise.