Thinking of Implementing a CLM tool for your Organization?
Why Agiloft should (or shouldn’t) be the solution for your team
The Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) industry is becoming quite the space to be in.
Think of all the emails being sent by your team — whether it’s modifying a standard clause for a specific client, or sending redlines to your Director of Compliance, Head of Legal, or your CFO, that your client has marked for your team to review.
How about all the different versions of a contract stored in a folder somewhere on your system? How will you know if a particular contract is up for renewal? Do you have a reminder that alerts you to reach out to your main contact?
Every organization, doesn’t matter how new or established, big or small, struggles with managing their contracts. Having a solid process in place can be the difference between passing or failing an audit, or operating in the black or red.
To combat this need, numerous companies have put their best foot forward in offering their state-of-the-art solution for organizations to streamline their CLM process.
The CLM market, defined by Gartner, who is arguably the main influencer in the industry in regards to awards & reviews:
“…a solution that proactively manages contracts from the initiation stage through the award, compliance and renewal stages. In this context, a contract is any agreement or contractual document containing rights and obligations that affect an organization now or in the future (e.g., a nondisclosure agreement). CLM solutions allow organizations to create, negotiate and store contracts in a centralized repository. Using these solutions helps mitigate organizational risk by enabling regulatory and policy compliance, providing governance over what is signed and with whom, and role-based access to terms and obligations with third parties. CLM solutions drive visibility, consistency and efficiency in the contracting process across an enterprise.”
So which CLM Solution should you pick?
Well, that depends on your organizational needs. I highly recommend that you do your research — read customer testimonials and request for demos of each product. There are plenty of viable options on the market. However, after spending more than 2 years implementing Agiloft for clients across various industries — I’m happy to share some of the Pros and Cons of the product that I’ve experienced, as well as what my clients have shared with me.
Why Agiloft?
Highly Configurable
While I can’t speak to the customization potential of other CLM tools such as Ironclad or Icertis, one of the biggest advantages Agiloft offers is it’s configuration potential. It can serve the needs of a small startup that has a very linear contracting process, or serve the needs of a large health system that spans multiple departments & hundreds of employees.
Some highlights that give Agiloft its high customization potential:
- Rules & Actions that can be run in the background or be triggered by an event, such as clicking a button. You can also set priority levels to ensure that certain Rules are being run first before another is ran.
- Conditional Clauses can be used to add further customization to your contract templates.
- A standard out-of-the-box solution that is ready to be used. Whether your organization has no CLM process or an intricate process that needs to be built-having an already finished end-to-end product gives your team a solid foundation to work with building towards your desired outcome.
- Conditional Approval Workflows can be used to add further customization to your approval processes — whether certain contract types need to be approved by various leadership levels for certain departments, financial thresholds, or specific department needs to put their stamp on a contract if certain questions were answered in a certain way — Agiloft provides a way to address your needs
Low Barrier of Entry
The beauty of Agiloft is that it is a solution that can be taught to users with little-to-no background in tech. Yes — with any software, there will be training needed for a system administrator to maintain and build further enhancements as the organization evolves (Agiloft provides an excellent & comprehensive certification). However, the software is beginner friendly and can be taught to End Users that aren’t tech savvy.
In addition, Agiloft is a no/low code software (the system administrator may encounter HTML or CSS to customize the UI, but aside from that — the extent of the conditionals are achieved by IF statements). Anyone, with the time, can become certified in Agiloft and be the main Agiloft resource for their organization.
Integrations with Many Popular Third Party software
Agiloft has partnered with Workato, an industry leader in integrations and automations, to make it increasingly simplified to integrate Agiloft with many of your third party software. By enabling Workato for your Knowledgebase (KB), your system will have the capability to integrate with 1000s of platforms, such as Salesforce, Slack, and Jira. Workato is built on what is called ‘Recipes’, and contains a library that has many pre-built recipes by others in the community. Most likely — your integration and automation is shared by another organization and the same recipe can be used for your organization as well. If not, Workato makes it simple to use to build your own recipe to give your organization the automation it needs to improve the efficiency of your processes.
24/7 Support Team
Agiloft has a Support Portal that can be accessed at all times of the year. Support tickets can be created and then assigned by Agiloft based on topic & priority.
In addition, each client is assigned a Client Success Manager to further meet their needs and be their point person in case of any issues or assistance.
Why Not Agiloft?
Limitations of an End User License
One of the common echoes I hear from my clients is how limited the functionality is for their end users.
Starting with the UI, end users do not have access to much aside from a link-driven interface to create/view contracts, upload documents, and update their profile. While additional permissions can be added for users to grant them additional functionalities — they all generally follow the same format.
In addition, it’s difficult to build in your end users into any core functionalities, aside from being a recipient of email notifications that the contract has reached a certain stage of its lifecycle.
Various packages can substantially increase cost
As the industry evolves, it’s inevitable that client needs increase — forcing CLM products to adapt to those needs.
While Agiloft offers an excellent standard product, various add-ons can substantially increase the total cost of implementation and licenses. For example, as mentioned above — Workato adds seamless integration with thousands of platforms — however, it is not included in the standard package and is available as an add-on.
Another example is Agiloft’s AI capabilities. Recently, in January 2024, Agiloft rolled out its Generative AI capability (GenAI) to streamline negotiations and empowers users to significantly increase the speed with which they’re able to redline, negotiate, and ultimately agree on contract terms.
This, on top of previous AI capabilities (such as an AI trainer that deliver fully individualized AI contract analysis to legal and contract teams, and Convo AI — which gives users access to an intuitive interface to find the contracts and contract details they need) gives Agiloft an edge and cements its place as one of the top CLM solutions in the market.
However, all this can be yours at an additional cost.
Outside of CLM, Agiloft hasn’t invested in much else
Understandably so, Agiloft has poured most of its resources into its CLM product as it’s, well, a CLM product. However, there are other features hidden away that you may not know of:
- Matter Management: A feature that allows your Legal team to intake legal requests and assign managers/priorities based on the legal matter submitted
- Sales: Agiloft has a feature for users to log leads & opportunities in your sales pipeline
- Document Management: A place where users can upload documents and have it go through an approval workflow & have team members review submissions, redlines, etc. on company documents
- Project Management: A place where PMs can create new tasks, assign tasks to various users, update statuses, and upload any documentation to various records as they’re completed or worked on
While there are many more functionalities offered by Agiloft, there just hasn’t been much attention put towards them as it is seemingly becoming apparent that Agiloft is moving away from a “one-stop shop” to focusing its resources on its CLM tool.
An outdated UI
A few clients have commented on the UI of Agiloft. While I cannot speak to the UI of other CLM tools, Agiloft can be clunky and not intuitive to users.
The more complex, fields, and processes that are built into the KB, the less intuitive the system can feel to a less tech savvy user (or any user). Training is expected for all users to overcome this barrier, and like any system- there will certainly be challenges with learning the ins-and-outs of each build and growing familiarity with the UI.
Conclusion
After implementing Agiloft for various clients over the past couple of years, it’s clear as to why they are (and should remain in the foreseeable future) one of the best CLM tools on the market. However, no tool is perfect — and there are reasons why Agiloft may not be the right tool for your team. However, I recommend requesting a demo and choosing the right implementer to ensure that your team has what it needs to start your CLM journey on the right foot.
If you have any thoughts on Agiloft, or have any input from other CLM tools — I would love to hear your comments below!
