– Makes managing thousands of contracts easy and streamlined, while ensuring compliance and minimised risk
3rd November, 2010, UK – Dolphin Software has launched the latest version of its highly successful contract management software, Dolphin Contract Manager 2.0 for Microsoft SharePoint. This new version includes breakthrough technology that enables legacy contracts to be captured and integrated into the current contract management system. Dolphin Contract Manager also makes contract management more ‘plug and play’ for large organisations, by simplifying administration and automating many elements of the contract lifecycle process. Key new features include integration with ERP, CRM and other systems, plus linkage to KPIs measurements. www.dolphin-software.com
Dolphin Contract Manager has been adopted by organisations in the USA, Europe, Middle East and Australasia, for instance Etihad Airways, Valve, Inc, and supported by a network of global partners, such as Hildebrandt Baker Robbins.
Market need & opportunity
Contract management is one of the fastest growing areas of software services in the business community: estimated to be growing at 23% per year according to Forrester Research. By making contracts easier to capture, handle and track, Dolphin Contract Manager helps organisations to reduce unnecessary time and cost wastage, while minimising exposure to risk.
Most large organisations have between 20,000-40,000 contracts, and around two thirds of all business transactions are governed by contracts or agreements. Yet traditionally, it has been difficult to manage contracts across a whole organisation, leading to lost contracts and missed milestones that can lead to contracts being inadvertently renewed, financial penalties, lost revenue or opportunities to re-negotiate.
Etihad Airways General Counsel and Company Secretary, Jim Callaghan said: “For our requirements at Etihad, Dolphin Software is clearly the one – it has a number of attractive features and is based in the Microsoft SharePoint platform, which we use company-wide. We have worked closely with Dolphin to specify our requirements now and in the future, and this solution is designed to adapt as our organisation evolves and grows.”
Another company using Dolphin Software is Valve,Inc, the highly respected entertainment software company behind many computer games and the phenomenally successful Steampowered.com online gaming platform. Valve uses Dolphin to manage its growing volume of contracts with third party developers. What is particularly important to Valve is how Dolphin is very easy for people to use, through its integration with everyday applications like Microsoft Outlook, Word and Internet Explorer. Practically, this means that users have been able to carry on providing contract information in the same way as before: the only difference is that information now automatically becomes part of a managed, centralised and error-free process.
New Features in Dolphin Contract Manager 2.0
Dolphin incorporates a wide range of new features designed to automate, simplify and more effectively manage the entire contract process. They build on existing features, including: contract authoring tools, legal clause library, contract process workflows and user alerts, contract repository and metasata database, contract obligations management, contract negotiation workspaces, and management dashboards and reporting tools.
Dolphin AutoCapture – the world’s first truly automated legacy contract migration tool that saves hours of time by automatically indexing legacy contract document, extracting contract milestone data and uploading them in to the Dolphin Contract Manager system.
Advanced contract obligations management – contract obligations can now be linked to KPI measurements and to specific contract clauses, allowing obligations to be classified in to specific groupings. The release also supports recurring obligations.
Web Services integration interface – the web services integration interface enables data to be pulled into the Dolphin system from ERP, CRM and other external systems, or vice versa.
Expanded contract metadata library – a comprehensive and classified library of ready-to-use, commonly-used contract milestone metadata, gathered from research conducted with hundreds of contract management professionals around the world.
Automated user administration – if contract properties need to be added, deleted or modified, this is drastically simplified with the new automated user administration console provides an effort-free guide.
Contract request forms – to help manage high volumes of incoming requests for contracts, these forms are completed by end users and then sent through to a managed workflow process
Enhanced workflows – more standard workflows automate and control routine manual contract management tasks, such as contract approvals, milestone alerts and renewals management. An advanced workflow module to Dolphin Contract Manager enables new workflows to be created without needing technical expertise.
Ability to approve contracts via email – and send to a workflow, even from a mobile device.
Contract amendment management -This feature allows amendments to exist as formal amendment documents and to be linked to the master contract or relevant milestone data.
Advanced management reporting – one of the most advanced management environments available today brings previously hidden contract milestone data to life, so that it can be tracked and auctioned more efficiently.
Advance legal clause library – enhanced to provide automatic synchronization with external clause sources (like the US Government FAR and DFAR list), as well as the provision of non-standard clause alerts, flow-down clauses for sub-contractors and automatic clause tracking.