The days of the old shared drive are numbered. We live in an age of collaboration and need access to key documents anywhere and anytime. The problem with traditional company storage is its proprietary nature, resulting in documents scattered across physical drives and multiple computer file systems such as Dropbox and Google Drive.
An even less secure option for document storage is a team member’s local hard drive. It’s a tempting alternative because of its convenience — everything is in one place with no hassle. But in doing so you can easily lose track of who is working on what, where their files are located, and which version they’re working on each time you make a change.
That’s why we love contract lifecycle management software. It takes all of your contracts and puts them in one place—a place where anyone in your organization can access them at any time, no matter where they are or what device they’re using.
Table of Contents
The problem with shared drives
With shared drives, sharing contracts is tricky because only one person can edit them at a time. If someone else needs access to the contract while they’re in progress (or just after), they’ll have to wait until the other person finishes editing their copy and saves it before they can work on theirs. The same goes for reviewers or approvers—either they wait until everyone else finishes editing or they all try to do it at once and risk making mistakes with conflicting edits. In either case, this makes it difficult for teams to stay on top of their workflow and easily access important documents when needed.
Unfortunately, that’s not very efficient—and it can be dangerous if one of those copies gets deleted or lost.
Why switch to a cloud-based repository?
We think you’ll be surprised at just how much better your contract lifecycle management workflow can be when you switch from a shared drive to a cloud-based repository. The benefits include:
● A more secure environment where only authorized users can access your documents.
● Easier collaboration because everyone works in the same place at the same time.
● Shareable documents that are accessible from anywhere with an internet connection.
● More efficient data management and retrieval thanks to search tools and analytics dashboards.
Say goodbye to static document storage
There’s got to be a better way—and there is. That’s why a contract lifecycle management software helps you to be on top of your day as it eliminates the need for multiple shared drives, and reduce risk by storing all of your contracts in one central location
It also creates an audit trail so that you can see who has accessed what when and where. That way, if there are any questions about the validity of something in your contract repository, they’ll be easily answered with just a few clicks.
By centralizing, consolidating, and standardizing all of your contract data in one repository, you’ll reap the benefits of having a single “source of truth” to manage contracts throughout the lifecycle—from initial contract execution to contract modification, delivery, and management. You no longer have to ask yourself if that document you downloaded from a shared drive or emailed over was the latest version – or even the correct version.
