#negotiatingcontracts

[alc-law-college]

Asian Law College (ALC) – which is an integral part of Asian Education Group and is ranked as one of the best Law Colleges in Delhi NCR – hosted a live interactive webinar session on the topic "NEGOTIATING CONTRACTS" by Ms. AKANKSHA SHARMA, Sr. Legal Counsel, Nestle India Limited, for its #BALLB & #LLB students and aspirants on Saturday, 10th April 2021 at 11:00 AM. under its Legal Lecture Series (LLS) 2021 – Season 5. 

 She started her deliberations by delving upon the major aspects to keep in mind while negotiating contracts, Clauses to watch, and Things that go unnoticed.

[contraxaware]

How to Handle Interrupted Contract Obligations and Negotiations Due to COVID-19

COVID-19 has caused incredible disruption and interrupted contract obligations across multiple industries. Businesses have been forced to close their doors. Many cannot operate using their usual processes. Others may struggle to keep up with their obligations to clients and vendors alike. While shifting to a paperless contract approval system will help, you may find yourself without access to subcontractors that you usually deal with or struggling to keep up with your contractual obligations. How can you handle those processes due to COVID-19?

Step One: Check the Terms on All Your Contracts

Many of your contracts may also have terms in place that govern operations in the event of a crisis beyond your control. This includes an "act of God" clause that will provide you with a blueprint, however vague, for how to handle many of the situations that may arise during this crisis. Some of your contracts, for example, may have terms that will allow you to change service delivery dates or what you're offering to your customers. Others may have specific terms that state how and when you must repay clients whose jobs you cannot complete in the midst of a crisis. Familiarize yourself with those terms so that you can deliver on customers' expectations. 

Step Two: Contact Representatives as Soon as Possible

If you have contracts or contract negotiations that are or will be disrupted by COVID-19, get in touch with those representatives as soon as possible. Most companies are experiencing some type of impact from COVID-19 at this time. They may be willing to renegotiate contractual terms or deadlines based on those changes. Discuss: Contractual Deadlines Are you going to have trouble meeting deadlines described in the contract due to decreased workers or changed policies in your warehouse or others? The sooner you get in touch with a representative from your contractual partner, the sooner you can make necessary changes to your contracts — and the better both of you can prepare. Inability to Deliver In some cases, you may not be able to deliver on your original contractual obligations. Venues, for example, might not be able to reopen due to COVID-19 social distancing guidelines. Other companies might have a limited capacity to deliver specific services due to fewer available employees. If you know you will not be able to deliver on your interrupted contract obligations, contact the relevant parties as soon as possible. Changed Needs You need to contact your clients as you manage potential changes to your contracts. At the same time, you need to connect with your vendors and subcontractors to reflect your changing needs. Your company may, for example, need a lower volume of production from some of your vendors. Alternatively, you may need to cancel specific orders as you see what managing COVID-19 will look like for your business. Contact your vendors as soon as possible to revisit those terms so that you can decrease any penalties associated with those needs.  Changed Processes  Your business may have made many changes to help protect your employees and your customers alike. Your contractual partners need to know about those changed processes and guidelines. You need to accomplish a couple of different things in this conversation with the representative. First, you need to describe the steps your company is taking. Your clients, for example, may need to know that your employees are working remotely, or what steps you're taking to keep your facilities as clean as possible. They may also need to know how any terms will differ from what's described on your contract, especially with regard to personal contact between you and your clients.  Once you discuss terms with those representatives, make necessary changes to those contracts. Then sign them electronically to indicate that they have been approved by both parties. Whether you need to interrupt services temporarily or make plans for after the crisis is over, you want a blueprint in place. This will allow your business to keep operating effectively.

Step Three: Make Negotiations Virtual for Interrupted Contract Obligations

Your business may have had many of your contract negotiations interrupted as you made the shift to remote work. Both you and your clients — and your vendors and subcontractors — may have been forced to stop work abruptly. Alternatively, you may have to transition to a remote environment. You also may have canceled meetings without rescheduling them, especially in the immediate aftermath of social distancing requirements in your state.  As things start to settle back to normal, however, you should continue with interrupted contract negotiations as soon as possible. Reschedule meetings, moving them to a virtual environment instead of meeting in person. You should: Set up your contract management software. You can ensure that your contracts can move through the approval process virtually, rather than needing any steps completed in person.Ensure that you have an electronic signature option available. Electronic signatures are just as valid as physical signatures. So you can go ahead and get those contracts signed and keep moving forward with your business.Revisit contract templates and compliance needs to ensure that you are both meeting the latest recommendations. Also, be prepared for future repercussions of the pandemic and how they could impact your business. Issue reminders about any contract negotiations or interrupted contract obligations that you need to revisit.  The COVID-19 crisis may have temporarily interrupted contract obligations and negotiations. But it won't bring business crawling to a halt for many industries. By following these steps, you can effectively handle those interruptions and prepare your business for success. See how our software can help by scheduling a 1:1 demo. Read the full article

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[contraxaware]

How to Keep Track of Changing Terms During Contract Negotiations

The redline stage of the contract negotiations process — when you're still making and tracking changes to your contracts as you work with your client — is one of the most vital stages when it comes to keeping track of changing terms. Your contract may go through multiple incarnations as you work to determine the best approach for both you and the other party. Whether you're dealing with a vendor or a client, tracking the entire of your business relationship matters (and we have a guide for managing the contractual history here). This process is crucial to reaching a contractual agreement that fulfills everyone’s needs. But it can also pose a number of difficulties when it comes to tracking both past and future versions of the contract. Read these tips to organize your current processes.

1. Utilize version control.

The ContraxAware platform utilizes version control to make it easy to track the latest changes and alterations to a given contract. It can also help you keep up with the current version. Version control offers several advantages during contract negotiations: You can easily locate, at a glance, the current version of the contract.You can see past versions of the contract easily. This can make it easier to revert back to previous terms or negotiate with the other party.You can see who made changes to each version of the contract. Strong history records make it easier to track what you have changed and what the other party has changed. You can also see who within your organization has made specific changes to the contract. Version control doesn’t just make it easier to keep up with all the changing terms of a contract. It can also streamline the approval process. Version control makes it easier for everyone to see who made alterations and when they were made. 

2. Take advantage of extensive cloud storage. 

Having adequate storage for your contract management system is critical to tracking and managing all the changing versions of a contract. When you're dealing with inadequate storage, you may delete old versions of contracts in an effort to clean things up. But you shouldn’t have to reduce the footprint of each individual contract.  Unfortunately, this practice makes it incredibly difficult to keep up with past versions of the contract. This can prove problematic if a change is made that either you or the other party doesn't remember. It’s also problematic if you need to go back and review the other versions of a contract for any reason. With extensive cloud storage, on the other hand, you don't have to worry about storage space. You can keep up with every version of your contracts. It doesn’t matter how many incarnations the contract goes through before being signed by both parties.  Cloud-based contract management software makes it easy to keep up with every amendment made in a contract before it's approval. Also, it can allow you to track past contracts with specific vendors or clients easily. You can track: How costs have changed over time.What alterations you've made to your contracts.How your relationship with that entity has changed since previous contract negotiations. 

3. Create an effective amendment process. 

What happens when one party has already signed the contract, but the other hasn't — and wants to make a last-minute change to the contract? Just like your business needs an approval process that allows essential members of the company to see the contract before it's approved, you need an effective amendment process that will allow you to handle last-minute amendments to the contract. This may include the following revisions to your contract negotiations process. Allow some minor changes without the contract needing to go all the way through the approval process again.  You can allow drop-down menu changes to control modifications. Alternatively, utilize your contract scoring system to help determine what changes you can agree to. This gives you the flexibility to accept last-minute changes without risking your business.  Trigger an alert for the individual who must review and sign the final contract.  Last-minute contract amendments may require faster approval than the original contract. Not only that, if there's a specific individual in your company who must sign off on a final contract, they may believe that they've already signed off on the contract. This slows down the process of contract negotiations. Make sure that your changes trigger an alert to ensure that the contract gets approved quickly.  Highlight the latest changes and amendments to the contract, especially when it has to go back through the approval process.  Checking amendments to a contract can be more difficult than ensuring that the initial contract meets the business's needs. Use your contract management software to highlight the changes made to your contracts. This calls attention to exactly the areas where it needs to be. Many of your contracts go through numerous changes before you and the other party finally sign them. With these strategies, however, you can more easily track those changes. More importantly, you can continue to create effective contracts that meet your business's needs. Also, our software makes it easier to ensure that, once you sign the contract, you keep up with the final terms.  Schedule a 1:1 demo to learn more about how ContraxAware can help you manage your contract negotiations. Read the full article

[contraxaware]

How to Automate Your Standards for Contract Term Negotiations

Your contract negotiation process can be one of the most challenging stages of your total contract management process, but it doesn’t have to be. The more you can automate it, the more smoothly the entire process will run. Automation through your smart contract management software can make a big difference in the entire process. Setting up strong protocols can: Decrease the hours spent on negotiation.Streamline the process for reviewing contracts.Increase the safety rating of your contracts.Make it easier to create a standard contract.  Make sure you're using these strategies as part of your contract management process. 

1. Create Standard Contracts

When your negotiators go to create a contract, they shouldn't have to start from scratch. Even when they're working with a new client who has brand new demands, the contract should start from a standard document. Statements of Work should have language, terms, and sections determined by each product or service added to the order.  In short, you should only rarely have to create a completely new contract.  If your negotiation team has access to a standard contract template, they can easily add the details to meet a new client's needs and demands. By simply filling in the blanks on amounts, timelines, and other details of a specific client, your negotiators can easily put together the initial draft of the contract. Even better, it will meet your company’s KPIs from the start. If you have standard contracts but it’s been a while since their last review, look for these common areas for improvement. 

2. Establish Your Standard Change Thresholds

Within any contract creation process, there is some room for negotiation.  As easy as it would be if your clients automatically signed the standard contract for every agreement, there will be times when you need to negotiate. Sometimes, clients will push for lower prices. Well-paying clients may want some alterations to the services you offer to fully meet their needs.  Within those negotiations, however, you should establish a standard range that you're willing to operate within. While you might be willing to offer a discount for a high-volume customer or one that has given your company a great deal of repeat business, you're only willing to discount your services or products so much. After all, you have to generate income from the contract! Your company likely has standard deviations for other areas of the contract, too. For example, you have a timeline on which you're usually able to deliver your goods or services. While you might deviate from that timeline for a rush order, you can only put things together so quickly on a regular basis. Set your contract management software to automatically display those deviations for your negotiators. Provide them with easy access to how far you're willing to negotiate and where the hard-line is drawn. As a result, you'll find that you have to spend less time dealing with the approval process since your contracts will already be acceptable. You can also grow your team faster as you empower every person with the tools they need to finalize deals and free up your own time.

3. Program in Your Hard Terms

There are some terms that you simply aren't willing to negotiate on — for any client. These might include compliance standards, legal requirements, or even what type of services you're able to deliver. Whatever those hard lines are, program them to auto-fill in your contract management software.  Highlight them so that negotiators can easily see them, and make the text uneditable. If you have a clause that is always included in your contracts, ensure that the program puts it there, in the appropriate place, automatically.  This simple step can save a great deal of time both on contract creation and on the approval process. Not only does it reduce manual work for your contract team, but you'll also know that the right clauses and terms are already in place. 

4. Automatically Score Contracts

Your contract management software should, ideally, include a scoring system. Learn more about how to build a scoring system around key performance indicators (KPIs). This will make it easier to keep up with any potential risks in your contract. You don't just have to score contracts when you file the final forms, either. Since your contract management software can put together those scores automatically, set it to score contracts at several different points in the process. This can offer a guideline that makes it easier for your negotiators to see how different changes impact hypothetical contracts. They can also determine if they need to make changes before moving on.  Even with a standard contract template, you might end up with a contract that poses far too much risk for your business. By automatically scoring contracts at several points in the process, however, you can catch problems quickly. Negotiators can then clear up any misconceptions or fix any problems before the contract moves down the line during the approval process. This can reduce revisions, approval declines, and roadblocks that make everyone frustrated.  Automating your standards can significantly streamline the contract negotiation and approval process. It can also make life easier for your negotiators and your customers. With these strategies, you can let your team spend more time focusing directly on what clients need and free up your approval chain to take on the other responsibilities they face on a daily basis.  Read the full article

[contraxaware]

How to Maintain Daily Operations While in the Middle of a Migration Project

Whether you've decided to switch to a new contract management system or you're in the middle of a merger, your business still needs to maintain daily operations. You want to be sure that you're able to keep up the regular flow of business despite your data migration. No matter what changes you make internally, your clients expect the same high quality of service you've always provided. Read our contract migration project guide for help with your project from start to finish. As you start, there are several steps you can take to keep up with your normal business tasks and responsibilities.

Create a Plan for Your Migration

Attempting a data migration with no plan in place to maintain daily operations could prove catastrophic for your entire business. By creating a plan ahead of time, you can more effectively migrate your data. Proactively planning also protects the normal tasks your business needs to complete each day. Make sure you have a solid understanding of: The scope of the projectHow long you expect it to takeHow you'll keep up with normal work tasks during the migration project You also want to ensure communication with your entire staff. This will ensure that everyone knows what to expect during the migration project.

Migrate Data at the Right Time

Data migration will often cause some disruptions to your normal work processes. That does not necessarily mean, however, that you have to give up your business's usual efficiency. Instead, make sure you choose the right time to migrate your data. Some businesses choose the trickle method: they migrate data gradually over time, allowing for effective testing for the quality and integrity of each data set before moving on to the next set. Other businesses may choose the "big bang" approach. This approach migrates all of your data over at the same time, in one fell swoop. This method allows a fast swap to a new system. But it may make it more difficult to properly check the integrity of your data and your contracts before beginning to utilize the new system. It can also be too interruptive if you also need to maintain your daily operations. Whichever system you use, make sure you choose the time that is as convenient as possible for most of your departments. Do not, for example, schedule a data migration in the middle of the workday during your busiest sales season. That’s when multiple members of your team may need to access the contract management system at the same time. 

Set Clear Priorities

Make sure you assign clear priorities to the data that needs to be migrated fastest and most efficiently. High-priority data might include: Currently active contractsContracts that you're currently negotiatingContracts that you may need to refer back to in the near futureLease agreements and vendor contracts Other documents, including legacy contracts, can often wait until a later stage of the migration. While this data is still important for your business, it can wait until more critical data has been migrated over. 

Clearly Designate What System to Use When

If you're combining two businesses and migrating to a single data system, both businesses may want to continue using their existing systems until the migration is complete. This will make it easier for each business to maintain daily operations keep up with its own contracts during the migration process as well as clearly designating which company is responsible for taking care of specific responsibilities.  Set a clear date for when you expect your employees to start using the new system. Before that date arrives, make sure every employee has a clear understanding of how to use that system and what will need to change about their workflows and processes to complete the migration. 

Put Training on the Schedule

To keep your workflows moving smoothly, your employees need to know how to use the new system. If the employees who have to use it every day have no idea how to use it properly, then it may disrupt daily business operations. Set aside time for training before you migrate to the new system. You may want to consider a test deployment. This will allow some members of the departments to get to know the system before completing the data migration. Proper training can help employees transition more smoothly to the new system. It also ensures that you can make the most of all of its features. You may notice some disruptions to your usual schedule due to your data migration. But that doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice the quality your customers count on. With these strategies, you can maintain the regular flow of your business even while you're in the middle of a major migration project. Read the full article