Contract Lifecycle Management has many benefits for corporations within the Mining Industry. In this case study, we explore what some of these benefits are and how they applied to a client of ours.
Shortly before going live with our CLM software application we asked our client three questions:
- Why they embarked on a contract lifecycle management project?
- What problems were they hoping to solve?
- Why they chose Realyst as their partner in this journey.
Their response was the following:
1. “Frankly, our supply chain needed improving, and at same time we are looking to drive down costs. Interestingly, it turns out that our peer group share much of the same issues.”
2. “There are disconnects between contracts, related purchase orders, spend …which results in a failure to realise negotiated savings.”
3. “Supply Chain opted for a Contract Lifecycle Management system connecting various disciplines in order to ensure that all our contracts are executed to maximum effectiveness…” They wished to ensure that the original contract relationship supported the business, that risks could be identified, controlled and mitigated appropriately, as well as to track identified savings negotiated with contracts.
As a result of these issues “Supply Chain embarked on a process to identify possible business partners for the supply and implementation of a CLM system. Realyst is a local competitive supplier that was shortlisted and awarded the contract for RealContract due to its system capabilities, integration capabilities as well as Realyst intensive supply chain knowledge which is not limited to systems.”
Realyst implemented the following modules to provide Supply Chain with the necessary functionality to:
- capture supply chain savings,
- ensure all relationships are subject to a contract,
- have a single view of contractual relationships across various operations,
- provide standard best practice processes and disciplines at mine level,
- become more efficient and compliant,
- have accurate, reliable data to make more informed decisions and pass between systems.
The various modules implemented include:
Contract Creation: Use standard contract templates for all engagements within supply chain scope, making it easier to identify, draft and sign contracts, while simultaneously extracting, reporting and distributing the data and information that resides in these documents.
Electronic signatures: To make signing of the contracts easier, more legally robust and having insight into what is signed and outstanding.
Document management: A central repository for all documents attached to an agreement, in any file format, automatically populated after the drafting and signature process.
Obligation management: Identifying risks by contract type, assigning obligations from the contract and recording tasks that are required to be acted on to mitigate risk and improve compliance.
Integration: Ensuring the correct data is passes between systems, including the supplier onboarding application, electronic procurement platform, finance system, and linking material element codes to budgets.
Supply Chain costs in a mining operation are significant and contracts are often complex and open to financial leakage. Therefore, the return on investment for implementing these disciplines supported by a best of breed software application, is an obvious and financially beneficial exercise.
The advantages are ease of implementation, use, it does not cost a fortune, it’s non-disruptive and provides returns relatively quickly.
To learn more about how our Contract Management software can benefit your company or industry, contact us today.
If you’re interested in learning more about our digital signature software, visit www.realystsignatures.com.