- 08 | 08 | 2025
Being a contracts manager or in-house lawyer is hard enough as it is. Small teams (one lawyer supports around 300 employees, according to the Association of Corporate Counsel) deal with hundreds of contract questions, keep track of paper and digital documents, and grapple with missing or inaccurate data.
Throw a merger or acquisition into the mix, and the problems multiply.
Do the contracts from the acquired company align with your existing terms? Are you aware of important deadlines that will need following up on, like price rises or contract renewals? How do you lay your hands on the documents when you need them, if they’re stored across filing cabinets, SharePoint folders and personal drives?
Enter Contract IQ from OASIS: a purpose-built contract categorisation system for live and legacy agreements. Unlike traditional contract management software, a UK-based team of document specialists configure and update this system, so data is always up-to-date and accurate.
We spoke to a contracts manager whose organisation has acquired several companies, to understand 7 problems Contract IQ has helped her solve.
“Our process was 100% manual. We uploaded contracts directly into our customer relationship management (CRM) system and manually filled in fields. The dropdown options sometimes forced us to enter inaccurate data – for instance we had to round up from 28 to 30 day payment terms. In the free text fields, the character count was limited and different team members recorded things inconsistently, leading to confusion when interpreting the data.
“During our organic growth phase it was just about manageable, but when we began acquiring other firms it was crippling. The data we needed access to changed. Going back and manually filling in data points was impossible.”
After Contract IQ
“Contract IQ has reduced manual effort and provided valuable insights that help us proactively manage obligations and opportunities. It isn’t just a tool, it is an essential part of how we inform and implement our strategy.”
“Our time was spent reacting to contract-related issues and handling queries which diverted us from more strategic work. We were putting out fires rather than focusing on initiatives that would help the business grow. As time went on the challenges we faced only became more complex and harder to manage.”
After Contract IQ
“With Contract IQ in place, we have more time to spend on proactive, value-adding activities like optimising our processes and identifying new opportunities to reduce risk or increase revenue – instead of being bogged down by administrative tasks and time-consuming box-filling.”
“Our CRM data was somewhat fragmented. While lots of people had access to the system, the lack of centralised control of contract data led to risks. There were instances of missing data, as well information being accidently altered or deleted. Crucially, this led to a lack of trust in the data across the business.”
After Contract IQ
“Because Contract IQ integrates with our CRM, it eliminates the need for manual data entry – meaning fewer errors. All contract-related information is automatically synced, so our teams can access up-to-date, relevant data directly within the CRM. The experience is more efficient both for the team and our clients.”
“The Contract Management team is small and the volume of queries that were directed to us often created a bottleneck. We had to ‘CTRL + F’ (manual search) our way through agreements. Many didn’t have optical character recognition (OCR), so we literally had to read all the way through. it was time consuming.”
After Contract IQ
“Now all the data is accessible to the wider business. People can easily search outside of existing data fields, not only in a single agreement but across the whole database. With no limitation to the number of users, we give access to everyone who needs it: client care, operations, billing, compliance and so on. It’s really user friendly and intuitive. Plus we operate across multiple countries, and having access to a translation of our foreign contracts has been a game-changer.”
“In the past, getting real time answers was completely impossible.”
After Contract IQ
“With all the right information in the right place, at the right time, we can make faster, more informed decisions. Beyond risk mitigation, Contract IQ has improved efficiency, increased visibility across our contracts and made it easier to stay compliant.”
“So much of our time was spent on manual processes and firefighting that it was almost impossible to carve out space for more value-added activities.”
After Contract IQ
“Now we can demonstrate ROI from the efficiencies and improvements this system brings to our contract management process. Reducing manual effort and providing real time access to data means we have been able to make faster, more informed decisions. It has improved visibility across the board – from dates and deadlines, to pricing and liability. We can mitigate risks and proactively manage contracts to maximize value and profitability.”
“We knew something had to change. We investigated contract lifecycle management (CLM) software and contract repositories but we were concerned about the transition process and how that may disrupt the business and existing workflows.”
After Contract IQ
“The other options we’d explored required a huge deal of time and energy from our side that we couldn’t resource. Whereas for Contract IQ, OASIS did all the on-boarding for us – we just provided access to the contracts.”
For small, organically-growing organisations, manual contract management can be difficult but technically doable. As your business grows, and particularly when you acquire other firms, it becomes impossible.
Contract IQ takes away the pain for in-house legal teams and contracts managers, so they can focus on more interesting, profitable work to help your organisation grow.
To find out more about Contract IQ click here!
