Interest in enterprise contract management automation continues to grow and for good reason. Improved compliance of procurement contracts drives additional savings hitting the bottom line while faster, more efficient sales contract negotiation results in increased revenues and lower costs. In a recent report, independent analyst Forrester opined that contract lifecycle management (CLM) could turn out to be the most important new business application of the first decade of the 21st century. Forrester also observed that they continue to get more client inquiries about CLM that any other ePurchasing product. Unfortunately, the contract execution process is too often overlooked in contract automation considerations.

Many organizations, including those who have implemented contract management solutions, still print paper contracts for wet ink signatures. This process is inefficient and costly. According to Dave Thorpe, Business Development Director at DocuSign, a leading eSignature provider:

According to Xerox research, businesses annually print over 18 trillion pieces of paper at a cost of $4 billion. But that figure pales in comparison to the more than $120 billion businesses spend each year to manually process paper. Compounding this enormous problem is the skyrocketing cost of transporting paper for signatures due to the high cost of fuel.

In addition to reducing costs, electronic signatures accelerate the contract negotiation cycle, improve security of executed contract documents, improve contract visibility and control, and play into green initiatives given the paperless nature of the combined contract management/electronic signature solution.

If you are considering automated your contracting processes, be sure to include electronic signatures in building your business case. Doing so will increase your ROI and address the risk mitigation issues likely at the core of your reason for considering automating your contracting in the first place.

Ken Miklos is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for Ariba’s Visibility and Contracts solutions.