Review Challenges
It’s not unusual that an enterprise possibly has more than 100 contract agreements for outside services. Maybe the company didn’t have dedicated resources to review all the contracts effectively. The enterprises could be unaware that some of the contracts are underperforming, especially if the users don’t complain.
Contract reviews are time-consuming and tedious without an obvious cost-benefit. Plus, the reviewers may have limited skills and experience to complete the process.
Providers have their own acceptable contract terms and conditions which they often use and are skewed towards the interest of the supplier. Providers can also change their contracts through hyperlinked documents without notifying customers, and it’s the enterprise’s responsibility to stay compliant.
Where is the Focus of the Contract Review?
Often, reviewers want to focus on the terms and protections related to the consequences of enterprise contract failure. The liabilities imposed on both the enterprise and the providers are usually the maximum concern. Other areas deemed significant but may overshadow performance terms and conditions are failure indemnification, protection of intellectual property, privacy regulation adherence, and confidentiality.
The contract negotiators should focus on more areas that help reduce the possibility of failure. The scope of the contract should be well defined and mutually agreed upon by one another. Your enterprise has business goals that should be addressed and delivered by the contract. What is measured and how the measurements relate to the goals should be understood by both parties.
The market in which the enterprise lives is changing all the time. Sometimes with conditions never envisioned, like COVID-19. Changes in the contract should be planned for and enumerated with what will be the consequences of these changes.
Tracking the Review
The review process takes time and produces labor costs. For all its contracts the enterprise needs to develop a process that reduces the time and costs that can be applied universally to its agreements. Create a checklist and review report format for enterprise contract reviews.
Each contract review shouldn’t require starting from scratch. You want to deliver a result that is uniform for the enterprise. This weeds out inconsistencies and makes it easier for C-level executives to confidently review the contracts and make approval decisions.
Overall, the lack of attention to contract review and monitoring can cost the enterprises more than what was saved by the outsourcing of the UC and contact center operations.
