Navigating the Challenges of Transitioning to a New CLM System with Trayce Marcelle

Made with speech-to-text software, so a few words may be off.

0:00You're listening to the Contract Heroes Podcast, your one-stop shop for all things contract management. And now, here are your hosts, Marc and Pepe. Welcome, everybody, to another episode of the Contract Heroes Podcast. We're still at the CLOC event at Vegas. This time, we have Tracy Marcel. She's the head of US and Legal Operation and Technology Consulting at LOD Sign. Welcome to the show, Tracy. Thanks. Glad to be here. So- So Tracy, what i- what is your take on the conference? I, I'm sure you've probably been at one of these before. Yes. And I've seen very little sunlight. It's been glorious, 'cause it's really hot outside. A lot of exciting people, a lot of people thrilled about the prospect, and, and who's here, and, you know, you don't often have the opportunity to speak to so many experts in so many different areas in one place.

0:57It's traditional Vegas, right? Sensory overload. There's so many different components of information to gather, giveaways, swag, drinks, but everybody's invigorated by it. It's exciting to see the energy that people bring in conversations, both sidebars and on this main stage. Pretty exciting. That's awesome. So Tracy, can you tell us a little bit about your experience and your background, for the people that haven't met you before? Well, I have a very interesting background. I've, people have referred to me as a unicorn, because I have such a- Oh... varied level of experience across a bunch of different things. I worked for an organization for a while where I was the only person that offered the service that we offered, and so I covered the project from start to finish. And obviously, I had assistance and help in, you know, different areas, but I learned a little about a lot, and over time I've learned a lot about a lot. And I love this stuff. I could talk about it all day. So, the more I talk to people, the more I learn. Um, so I've done legal operations management consulting for over 20 years now.

2:00And I've done really, really big projects, helping really revolutionize the organizations that are, way they're using technology. I'm a Six Sigma Black Belt, so how they're utilizing process management and optimization. I've done data migrations, integrations, custom CLM builds, remediations of pro- improperly implemented solutions. I recently wrote a blog, uh, you know, It's Not You, It's Me, right? If you really, really hate a technology from start to finish, it's because you didn't implement it in the right way. Right. And what, like, in your experience, because, you know, like, when we talk about legal innovation and legal tech, that's like a buzzword, right? Because there's not, like, all-in-one solution that can fix everything. Right. So in your experience, when a company, either that, that's like, like, a big corporation, global corporation, or a mid-market company, like, what are usually, or why they come to you to help them?

2:58And can you tell us a, a little bit in, in some of your big projects, or the, the ones that you remember the most? So, yeah, w- I was just having this conversation earlier about the buzzword legal tech. You don't hear HR tech. Yep. You don't hear people and talent tech. Why can't it just be inherent in the understanding that in order to operate efficiently, you need some lev- See, that was a good idea. Did you hear that splash? You have to im- Live in Vegas. Yes. Yeah. You have to implement something to allow you to do that in a way that's efficient. And who does it in any other way that isn't technology? Like, we use that for, in every aspect of our life, but it, sometimes it feels foreign as an investment by a legal department to do that. Right. And I know getting money is hard, and identifying the return on investment and the business case is difficult, but it's such a s- such a norm now that y- you can find a technology that offers one thing.

3:58Because, you know, at the end of the day, contracting's contracting, right? End to end, you want a, uh, from idea to invoice, whether you're introducing CPQ or just contract management life cycle. But you, every tool does something really well. In this day and age, with the low-code, no-code solutions, you can actually take something that is really, really good in a product and configure it in a way that supports your need. For example, I was working with a client who had a lot of patents. They were struggling to manage the patents internationally, because country law changes so often. Right. Tracking that and, and being able to action those patents related on those laws and the changes, you would lose your patents because you can't manage them, especially if you were a major global organization. So, worked with a tool that actually had country law inherent in that tool, and built patent management system around it.

4:52So you're utilizing that thing it does really well, and was able to configure all of our other aspects to take that from end to end. And at the end of the day, it's just an end-to-end process. Whether it's contracting or HR processes, internal, external, it's a workflow. And if you take the technology out of it and start having conversations about what you want to get out of the system, your intended result, you're going to find that your world will open in a way that allows you to see these things for what they can do for you, instead of you adapting to the technology that you have in front of you. Right. And I, I, I mean, I think that that's so important, right? You, you need to make the technology work for you, not, not the other way around. And I, you know, something else is, you know, we talk about legal tech, right? But it's not, it's not legal tech anymore, right? Nope. There, there needs to be other departments involved in these conversations. Yep. And it's great if legal finds something that works for them, but that phase two or phase three, they're going to have to incorporate other departments into that workflow, and that's where they get in trouble, where you need to bring them into the conversation early- Yep...

5:55so that you can actually understand what their needs are as well, so that when you're evaluating software You understand what the actual corporation needs, not just your department. Correct. So there's, I... You know, the triangulation of finance, procurement, and legal. Whenever I start a project, obligation management, rev rec, risk, right? Those are the things you think about. So you have to know you, what you want out of a system before you build it. You don't start with the data model, identifying data that you can analyze, manage, report on. And you don't have to get it right straight away, but you have to have an idea generally of the information that's important to you. All of the other information will become, come naturally. So you, if legal engages me, I ask to talk to procurement and finance. Yeah. Same thing with procurement and finance. Everybody needs to be involved in the conversation because it becomes a doorstop then, just something one department can use. I mean, even if you're just looking for a repository, right? Yeah. You, you need all of that information from the company in there to really run, to be able to run those reports.

6:53You could have the best tool in the world that has amazing AI, but if you don't have all of your c- like, data in there, it's just not gonna work. Exactly. And if you don't know what you're looking for- You cannot know how to measure the success. Exactly. Right? Yeah, exactly. So, so how do you see, you know, companies, I, I feel like they maybe get into a project, right? Legal gets into a project. How do you see them bringing other departments on board and getting them excited about what they're doing so that they know that it's gonna impact what, what they're doing on a day-to-day basis? Depends on the culture, right? I've worked in organizations that are just excited about changing, can't wait to try something new, and literally tear it apart in front of you, and then there are organizations that want absolutely nothing to do with it. You wanna create an environment of envy. You want to create an environment where people are talking about what you're doing and are excited about it. You have to create champions, and that means when you're doing your requirements gathering exercise, you understand what people want out of the system.

7:53You know, if you, if someone says, "I want a button that does X, Y, and Z," and you give them a button, they're gonna say, "Well, what about X?" Well, you said you wanted a button. Take the technology out of it. I'd like the system to be able to produce information on, you know, X, Y, and Z. And then you gather that from both really important direct stakeholders and those tangentially related to the process, so you're able to manage expectations, communicate what is in phase one and what is not in phase one. Because what isn't included is much more important than what is. And how you're going to achieve that, both in that initial phase, and what, how you're going to address it in later phases. So difference between listening and hearing. I heard you, this is what's important, and this is how we're going to address it. Right. And I read a couple of articles published by Bain Company, McKinsey, and can't remember what, which was, uh, the other one. I think it was Boston Co- Consulting.

8:47And they said that 70% of digital transformation projects fail because they don't have a right action plan. Right. They have no idea what they want to implement. And on the other side, what we'd also seen is, like, there are some companies that they just jump straight to the technology. You know? Like, they already moved all their, you know, like, their pieces on the, on the table to get the budget, to get the approval from finance. But then when they approach to consulting companies and they say, "Okay, we want to get implemented DCLM. We already know how much it's going to be for licenses and how much we need to pay for the implementation." And then what, in the kickoff call, they're like, "Okay, the, from the implementation side." It's like, "Okay, tell us what do you want to implement, the data gathering, right? The requirements w- gathering." And they're like, "I don't know. You tell me." I mean, we don't have even mapped it. They don't have, like, processes. So, like, how do you recommend, or, or how do you think is the best way to approach to them?

9:51Because of course if they have nothing in place, this is going to be maybe increase a little bit the cost because now you're gonna pay a company- Right... for their consulting services so they can, you know, streamline your, your processes so you can know exactly how you can measure the success of the implementation. Right. Right? But when you tell them that it's going to cost them, m- maybe it's not going to be, like, a substantial amount if you compare it to the implementation with the licenses. But how can you tell them, like, you gotta get, have a step back and analyze the situation because w- without this, maybe in the future your users are, are not going to use the system. And- Right... and adoption is gonna be a mess. Like, how do you talk to them to, to take that step back? So the reason why you come to a company like CYC is this is all we do. We do CLM. We are not gonna go off tomorrow and do an HR implementation. Yeah. We've done this across verticals, across regions, across whole geographies, small, large. We give you things to react to if you don't know.

10:55We have worked with a company like yours very close or tangentially related in many different instances. So we can say, "All right, you don't know what this workflow should look like. Here's what we've seen in a similar business." We're firm believers that you don't boil the ocean. If you spend a year planning an implementation, by the time you're ready to implement, it's all wrong and it's all changed. Right? As soon as you put something on paper, it's, it's dead. It's like trying to, trying to document in a- Well, I mean, I laugh because we're in a project right now that's gonna take a year to implement. Mm-hmm. And we know their processes are gonna change, right? Yep. Their, even their, their templates are gonna change. Yeah. They're gonna evolve. They're gonna hire new people. And it, and it's, it's sometimes it's hard to, to get the customer to understand what we're talking about, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's so true. It's, it's what we live, right? Yeah. But here's a piece of information that I give a lot of people, and I think this is really important because it draws a parallel to what you're gonna see across any other project.

11:53Your approval matrix, especially in a complicated organization, they will if-then you to death in that scenario. So you're spending months trying to document approval matrix You know what I say? Forget documenting. Build in ad hoc approvals because, A, that's what they're doing today in a manual capacity. The data then will tell you, if you take a retrospective view of that data and how those contracts were executed over the past six months, depending on your value or your volume, it'll tell you- Well, well simplify it, right? Yes. Make it easier for people to, to, as long as their processes aren't broken. Right. Use those same processes, implement those, let people see, and then like you said, let the data tell you what is, is actually happening and, and what you really need to implement as a phase two. Exactly. I'm a big proponent of identifying 10 or 15 metadata fields that'll give you a good view of your contracting universe, right?

12:46Directionally where you need to make business, finance, or strategy decisions based on a report is, instead of culling through millions of or hundreds of contracts. And then you use the technology in a way that allows you to just put in the metadata, pull in your contract, execute it using, you know, the redlining, the negotiation capabilities, approval, signature repository. If everyone's using it, you're getting it in the hands of the users quickly. You're allowing them to take, realize at least some value in that efficiency early on. But most importantly, you have the data to give you the direction on where you need to go next. Well, get those quick wins. Yep. You know? Get people excited like we were talking about, right? Yep. Show other departments what the system is capable of so that they're on board to use it as well. Exactly. So when they're using it, let's say you start with an NDA, which is, you know, pretty, a pretty good and robust contract to start with, 'cause a lot of people are using it and it's pretty simple to, to automate. You start with that, and then you, then you begin working with the regions on how to make that NDA specific to them based on that conditional logic within the system.

13:48And then, and then they're like, "Wait a minute, I can do this," and, and you start using it as a demo and as a pilot. Well, the light bulb goes on. Right. And then you have, your preamble is your first clause 'cause it's in every single contract, right? And then you just start that, that clause library evolves organically over time, along with increase in adoption and utilization of that technology. And it becomes something they're like, "Wow, did you know we can do this?" And I love to hear that. Yeah. So how do you, how do you talk the customer or the prospect off a ledge that's like, "We need 10,000 different things that our CLM should do," right? Right. "We need a clause library. We need all of these functions." But if they try to implement all of those at once, it's just not, it's gonna be overwhelming, and you can't do that in a single phase. Yeah, the training is gonna take forever also. Yes. You prioritize. Yeah. What are the things that keep you up at night? And more importantly, what's important to the people to whom you are responsible? Where are you going to be measured, and where are they going to be measured?

14:43So if you start, if it's, "We need data on all our contracts," or, "We need to wrangle the contracts that have the highest risk," or, "We're looking at contracts with this company," or, "We need to understand vendor qualification. How do we track that and utilize that in execution of our contracts?" You could say to them, "I think it's important that you start with an NDA." And therefore, if you don't say it in a language that translates to their specific culture, then you would end up potentially with them saying, "Well, that doesn't even relate to us. You have no idea what we're talking about." Well, we, we try to say, "Hey, pick your three favorite contracts," right? Yeah. "What are you doing the most volume of? Let's start there." Right. Right? Let's get you through that. And again, get user adoption up, and, and then we'll, we'll do a phase two or a phase three. Yeah. But you know what? Then you have a GC that says, "Well, you know what? We're gonna struggle with all of those pe- you know, we can't train all those people. They're very busy and it's quarter end." So everyone's going to have a reason why it won't work. But I find the thing that makes the most success in my instance is something that I know about their business. Like, I know this is a business problem that you have, you know, based on all con- all the conversations.

15:47Because you bring up a really good point. Getting the, the highest volume users is really important, but someone is going to tell you why that isn't important for them. And so what we do all day long is, I call it Whack-A-Mole, right? You're like, "Wait, oh, nope. That, nope, not that." And so we're just constantly trying to figure out the thing that resonates, and that's through those conversations. And people are sometimes struggle to have that conversation with you. Yeah. Well, and I think that an implementation drives that conversation, right? Because they actually have to figure that stuff out be- because they're on the clock now. They're, they're paying for something. And I just think it's so important to try to have those conversations beforehand, but it's tough, right? It, it, there, there's other things that you have a day-to-day job in your organization that you're doing. And trying to implement, you know, a CLM or any other piece of technology just really un- uncovers what is really happening at an organization. Ideal scenario, pre-CLM selection, because I've always said, let's take the technology out of it.

16:45Let's document a complex business process within your organization, and have the, the tools build a demo based specifically on that. Yeah. So everyone in that demo is scoring you on those things. You're an apples to apples comparison, and you're seeing how it relates within your culture, in your business environment, using your words. It's relatable to the people in the room, right? Right. No, and it's also important to bring the other stakeholders because they know the other part of the business that maybe legal is not, you know? Because we've seen that a lot of the times the people that do the negotiation process is the, is the commercial team. Right. And the legal just comes when, I don't know, they need to check some clause or whatever if- Yep... if it's, uh, like compliant with their standard terms and conditions. But on the other side, we've also seen sometimes during the implementation process that maybe the legal team doesn't want to involve with procurement because they think... or sales, because they think that sales, they just want to close as fast as possible. Yep. But they don't care about the risk of the contract. Yep. You know?

17:47But the thing is like at the end when you have the system i- implemented, if you didn't bring the stakeholders that are going to be users of the system, then maybe they're, they're just going to start, you know, complaining that, you know, you're giving more, more work. You know, it's, it's my job to sell, not to give you all this information so you can build your, your contract. It, it should be you. Yep. Right? But if you bring them and you ask them questions on what are, like, those pain points or bottlenecks, like why those deals are no closing as fast as you want, maybe you can find a way on how both departments can agree into a solution, right? And at the long run, the adoption is going to be more efficient because they're gonna be excited about that, that new software because they know the benefits. And on the other side- I have bad news for you. Yeah? No one is going to agree. Well- Honestly, and that's the thing. Okay, so sales for example, legal front door. Exactly. They're giving you the information in some way now, right?

18:49Why not figure out a way for them to en- enter that into one place? That's the legal front door. Sales is taken care of. Legal has what they need from sales to execute. Legal then is the one who works with you to understand how to streamline their processes, because they're the ones who want it. Right. Right? And you can't make other people want it. If you are trying your best to, you know, wrangle, herd those cats, if you will, and you aren't able to bring everyone into a agreement, which will never happen, you focus on things that will allow that group to be successful, but in the way that's most beneficial to the organization by proposing legal front door submission. You can track the number. You have measurable criteria in which to define a business case for future growth. We're getting these, these contracts, right? It's a metric that I don't know that a lot of organizations can track today, especially major large organizations. Right, and in our last interview with Louis, Brett, I love when he was talking about, like, you've been in a lot of, you know, projects where the CLM imple- implementation weren't as su- successful as they thought they were. So when they have this as a background, like maybe the sales team, they hate the CLM because it's not working, like, how do you fix that? Like, how, how can you get them excited about something that they already hate?

20:15That's interesting, because I was having a conversation with a client about this the other day. And I've said on numerous occasions, I would not have had the jo- a job for the past 10 years if people didn't do this wrong. Contracting's hard, but you have to change the perception of CLM, again, taking the technology out of it. If you were looking at moving from transitioning from one system to the other because this one doesn't work, first you have to realize that business requirements are a very important piece of understanding point of success of that tool. And then you have to look at the bubble of overlap with spend, because you're going to pay for licenses with the tool until you transition off of it, and you have to transition to a new tool that you have to start paying for- Yeah... before the other one ends. So it's about being preparedness and making small tactical changes in those operational processes while you're still in the tool that you're transitioning away from, changing the perception of contracting. Forget the tool. You're changing their perception.

21:13Because if you don't do that, they're going to roll their eyes and say, "Well, it's just gonna be another brick that doesn't work for me." Yeah. So you start looking at data governance and usage and adoption, and where are the gaps and where are the problems, and you start just changing their perception of the way it does work and the way that it can work. Yeah. And you start creating excitement about it. Even before you decide and negotiate on the next tool, you know where you're going, but you don't start paying for it until you know what that overlap is going to be so you can budget for it, and you have people prepared for what's coming and getting their input to help it make it more successful than the previous tool. Yeah, the pre-implementation, right? Yep. You, you really need to plan that. And there's more organizations out there that are doing this now. You know, there's a couple out there that are doing a great job in our space. And I think it's just so important for, for companies to really focus on that and try to slow down before you speed up. Gotta walk, what is it? Crawl, walk, run. Crawl, walk, run.

22:10I mean, I obviously walk before I crawl. Well, Tracy, this has been an awesome conversation. Thank you so much- Thanks... for joining us. Thanks for having me. And, uh, I hope you have a blast in Vegas. Thanks. Thanks so much. All right, thanks everybody for listening to another episode of Contract Heroes.