Originally published in GovCon Wire on December 1, 2022
Did you know there are currently more than 200 vendors in the Contract Lifecycle Management software market? Even with a clear understanding of the many benefits delivered by CLM tech — e.g., more effective risk and compliance management, greater contract profitability, improved delivery to customers, more cost-effective contract administration — contracts organizations often find it overwhelming to begin a CLM software selection initiative given the tremendous number of available systems.
Additionally, for a contracts department operating in the aerospace and defense or government contracting industries, there’s an added challenge: your CLM needs are in many ways cut from a different cloth than those of your counterparts in the commercial world. The vast majority of CLM solutions in the market are first and foremost designed to support the request, creation and negotiation of commercial-to-commercial agreements and often lack critical capabilities that support the many and varied roles the contracts team plays throughout the lifecycle of pursuing, winning and performing a federal contract.
How do you begin to sort through the noise of 200-plus potential solutions? What evaluation criteria are most important when managing contracts in the federal marketplace? After reviewing over two dozen requests for proposals I’ve been involved with in the A&D/GovCon sectors and speaking with two major information technology research firms about inquiries they’ve received from our industry, I’ve come up with three imperatives for federal contractors to consider to successfully shape your evaluation of CLM technology.