Why ProsperOps prioritized CLM early and let it scale with the business

ProsperOps’ experience highlights the value and benefits of implementing a CLM early, no matter how small your business may be.

Company

ProsperOps

Location

Texas, US

Industry

Software

Size

SME

Key outcomes

Scalable contracting processes that support growth without adding operational complexity

Compliant and efficient self-service contract creation for Sales and Customer Success teams

AI contract summaries, making it easy to surface key data for more-informed strategic conversations

Objective

Cloud cost optimization organization ProsperOps, although only a small company of 45 employees at the time, knew the value a contract lifecycle management (CLM) solution could bring to the business. The company’s sole lawyer, VP of Legal Nicole Chamberlain, recognized that relying on manual contract processes and a scattered intake process through the likes of Slack, email and calls, wouldn’t scale.

Sales and Customer Success teams were frequently creating their own contracts, often using locally stored outdated templates. Nicole had strong relationships with these teams and they knew to send her their contracts before distributing them to the third parties. But this created unnecessary and time-consuming work - repeatedly reviewing low-risk contracts and making the same updates to standard terms and outdated clauses.

“Everything was manual. I quickly realized that would become unruly and unmanageable as we were growing, and we were growing at a rapid pace.”

As well as the unstructured intake process, Nicole also had challenges around visibility. Without a tool to manage signed contracts, there was no reliable way to track obligations, key terms, or renewals.

Nicole approached her management team with a proposal for contract lifecycle management (CLM) software. She was met with great enthusiasm and support, “Our leadership trusted us, as we said that a CLM was going to bring value and that the cost was going to outweigh any recurring fee cost because of what we could gain in value and scale.”

Even with just 45 employees, it was clear that putting structured legal and contracting processes in place early on was the best approach. The business was growing and evolving their product offering at a fast rate. Waiting until the company or legal team became bigger would only lead to more complexity and extra work later on.

For ProsperOps, and many small businesses, starting now and letting their future CLM grow with them is a smart move.

"We began looking into a CLM because we needed to make sure that the teams creating contracts were using the right templates and not just creating contracts from an old template they’ve downloaded and saved to their desktop. It was a very manual process and I would get asked questions about contracts that I hadn’t even read.”

Nicole Chamberlain

VP of Legal

"The biggest selector for us was to be able to have a solution where frankly, we weren't just one of thousands and thousands of customers. We wanted to have quality attention, which has turned out to be a good ask and a good goal because we have definitely gotten that!”

Molly Campbell

Director of Legal

Solution

As the business’ sole lawyer, Nicole knew her CLM search would be a time-consuming job. She decided to onboard additional help to initially focus on the search, selection and implementation of their future CLM. Molly Campbell, now Director of Legal, joined the business and began her CLM project with two clear use cases in mind:

A structured and consistent self-serve intake process for non-legal teams that legal could easily track.
The ability to automate tracking and obligation management.

“We wanted a tool that was agile enough to customize for our use case, and not something where we had to change how we work to fit the tool.” Molly Campbell, Director of Legal.

After conducting thorough product and user research using review platforms like G2, and exploring disruptors in the industry, ProsperOps ran a proof-of-concept process with two CLM vendors and picked Summize as their winner.

Summize met the business’ two clear use case needs and ultimately won over the platform’s flexibility, ease of use and the strength they could see in the vendor-customer partnership.

Implementation then began. Instead of rushing, Nicole and Molly took a very well-planned and deliberate approach, including a 12-person pilot period to gather feedback in order to refine templates, review the intake process and address blind spots early on.

“We took a lot more time really thinking through the implementation project than I think most people do and we had a long pilot group to get feedback from some sales stakeholders. We wanted their buy-in and we wanted them to be champions of the tool when we made it available to the rest of the team.” Nicole Chamberlain, VP of Legal.

The pilot successfully brought non-legal teams into the process, giving them a clear voice and active role. As a result, roll-out and adoption were very strong. Everyone felt part of the project and knew that their opinions and goals were fully considered in the CLM process.

Outcome

Since implementing Summize, ProsperOps has transformed its contracting processes, significantly improving efficiency, visibility and scalability across the business.

One of the most immediate impacts has been the reduction in the Legal team’s manual work. Tasks that previously took hours each week - such as drafting and reviewing routine contracts - have been reduced to quick approvals, freeing up capacity for more strategic work.

At the same time, all teams now carry out contract processes with much greater confidence. Everyone knows that the self-serve intake process through HubSpot and Slack is structured. Sales and Customer Success teams can only access the most up-to-date and approved templates, and they know which contracts don’t need a second pair of eyes from legal. Not only has this reduced risk, but it empowers the business to move faster and more independently.

“What used to take hours every week is now about 15 minutes approving things. It’s been a huge lift!” Nicole Chamberlain, VP of Legal.

Molly and Nicole also benefit from tracking capabilities that previously were non-existent – audit trails, reporting and transparency of key information which can be used for clearer decision-making. In addition, Summize’s AI-powered summaries are used daily by the team to surface key clauses and summarize agreements for future analysis.

One big outcome for ProsperOps and their future-proofed solution is because of their Summize relationship. One of Nicole and Molly’s biggest criteria when selecting their CLM was the agility and support that the CLM vendor would provide them. The team knew they needed a partner that is as supportive of the small business, as it would be for a large enterprise, and Summize does this for them: “Our Customer Success Manager is an asterisk member of the ProsperOps legal team!”

Importantly, ProsperOps’ experience highlights the value of implementing a CLM early, no matter how small your business may be.

As a company of just 45 at the start of their project, they were able to roll out the software quickly, train a manageable number of users, and build strong foundations before complexity increased. By doing so, they have avoided the operational challenges that can happen when businesses wait too long to invest in contract management. ProsperOps have manageably created a streamlined process that sets the business up for their continued future growth and success.

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“As a CLM provider, Summize is just very supportive of us. That was one of our big things. We're just two people and we need a super strong support partnership. This was one of the things we were looking for and we got that and we’re very much supported and making sure that our use of Summize is successful and a good experience.”

Nicole Chamberlain

VP of Legal