No Tool Fixes a Broken Process With Joel Gershon

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. Well, Joel, thank you so much for joining us. Uh, we're excited to have you on the podcast. Before we flip things over to Pepe to give us a, a bit more information on what we're gonna be chatting about today, we'd love if you could give the listeners a bit of information on your background. Sure thing. So my name's Joel Gershon. I'm based in Chicago, and I've been doing, uh, partnerships and alliances for a number of years in the tech space. So building partnerships not only, uh, with tech companies, but w- also with vendors who do implementations. And I've worked for companies as large as Adobe, working with partners like Accenture and Microsoft, um, all the way down to smaller companies as well. So I've been at IntelAgree and in the CLM space for about a year. I've been building out partnership programs both on the tech side and on the implementation side. See lots of things, and really grateful to be here today and talk about partnerships. Man, only a year.

1:21It feels like a lot longer than that, doesn't it? Yes. But that's good. That means there's enough activity to, uh, make it seem longer than a year. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and Pep, what are we gonna be talking about today? It... And it's been a good year, you know. Like, there's been a lot of changes in the market. Uh, you know, like, we've been talking a lot lately on AI, like, how automations at the beginning of the show and, like, in, in the last couple of season, but now we wanna change a little bit the topics, and we want to talk about the market. You know, there's been a lot of M&A going on- Mm... in the market, a lot of CLM advisory business changes in the market, and since to be in the trenches, Joel, like, we really like to get your inputs there, right? Like, how you've seen the market, what are the changes, how do you think, like, not just vendors, but services partners can get better to improve in the market?

2:21And let's kick off, what's your read on the, with all these M&A consolidations in the legal tech lately? Yeah, it's interesting. So there's two different pieces. One obviously is on the tech side, tech companies buying other tech companies, and that's a story as old as time. I think that's gonna continue, especially with what you mentioned, Pepe, about the, um, about AI and consolidation. But really what's an interesting focus now is what we're seeing, advisory and consulting services that focus on CLM are now getting by the vendors themselves, so that's creating an interesting dynamic in the market. So whereas if you go to a Koho, their job is to find you a CLM and be a neutral party to help you guide your journey through CLM. Now they're kinda taking that out of the equation, and they're buying... CLM vendors are buying the advisory, so you're getting everything from one place, which can be both a benefit and a detractor. Yeah.

3:25Like you said, right, a benefit, and there's good and bad, I think, that's included in these acquisitions. I think it's great to see vendors are starting to mature i- you know- Mm... in the way that they're looking at how important these consultants are, and having them in-house, right, is, it go- goes a long way to hopefully improve the, the customer's experience during the implementation and, and even the sales cycle. But as you mentioned, right, there's definitely a, a, some hesitation there and concern around do customers truly understand how to evaluate these vendors their own, uh, right, and having- Right... to run these processes, uh, themselves now that y- companies are, are starting to, publishers are starting to acquire, um, some of the consulting firms out there. Yeah. For sure. So in a perfect world, like you mentioned, um, having an unbiased opinion upfront when you're looking at a CLM is very important, but I understand the genesis of sometimes these solutions are very complex, and the vendor is having a tough time scaling and having a tough time advising partners properly.

4:41So the reflexive motion is like, "Let's go buy a services company." Uh, whereas I think the right way to go is a more pure-play approach, which is get some partners like a Koho that can do the advisory and train them on the technical pieces of the vendor's software. So what you're getting is the best of both worlds. You're getting your advisory from the advisory, and you're getting the software. Once you mix them together, it gets complex because let's say you go down the road a year, uh, your CLM's not working. If your vendor's also your services person, you're gonna go, "What's wrong with my system?" Every single time, the vendor's gonna go, "You need to buy more software." That's the problem. So it has an inherent conflict of interest, whereas if you have a pure play, something's wrong over a year, maybe it's not the product that's wrong.

5:34Maybe it's you have a new process that hasn't been completed, or you have something else that's changed in your business over the last year that needs to be fixed, and the only people who can do that is a pure play CLM rather than a vendor. Right. And else- Yeah... and I think that another good things from the customer side is not just looking for a, you know, technology partner or a service partner, but somebody that also knows your industry. Right, because it's not the same to do a CLM implementation for a biotech company than for a construction company or for the pharma or any other kind of industry. Man- manufacturing, they all have their own details there. They really wanna feel like you understand them, right? Because one of the first things that us, us CLM advisory vendors is that we understand you, and we can go ahead before asking all the questions and trying to get all the answers from the customers. Like, they also feel more secure when you can give them recommendations. "Okay, we have done this- Mm-hmm... on some other implementation. Maybe this is going to work for you," right? You are into the biotech.

6:47This is, like, a really high regulated industry. Maybe you need some check and balances here before you can, you know, enter into a contract with a specific provider there, right? And in your opinion, Joel, like, what do you think would be, like, a good set of questions on how do you think company that they either have already a CLM, but maybe it's not working, like you said- Mm... because maybe their consulting partner di- didn't understand all their processes, or they're looking for a new one. What would be, like, your recommendations when they're, like, looking around and, and start going maybe just, like, the Google or maybe just asking Claude, right, uh, for the specific partner so they can start working on. Or maybe just to start building a RFI, for example. Yeah. I think that's a great topic, and what I would say wholeheartedly is don't try to do it alone. So we get a lot of customers or prospects that are trying to run evaluations on their own or they're in a tough spot with their CLM, and they're trying to do what you say.

7:52They're trying to read a analyst report or they're trying to do their own research. And what happens is, since they're not used to running these processes, it tends to get a little muddled, and it tends to belabor a process that shouldn't take too long. So I think the best thing for a company that's in a situation like that is to go to a Koho like CLM Advisory that understands the entire landscape, and their job is to help customers guide them through not only the implementation process but also the selection process of, like, "Here's some things you should be looking at," and/or what we were talking about before. Maybe it's not the technology. Maybe your processes need to be tweaked. But again, like, 100% don't do it alone, and as much as it pains me to say it, 100% don't go to your vendor to fix a problem. I would say always get a third party involved to get that unbiased opinion. Yeah, and obviously we love hearing that, right?

8:53And, you know, I think it's a challenge for organizations where maybe it's not, you know, the first thing that they think of, right, when they're starting to take a look at these, their processes. They know something's wrong, but they immediately jump to evaluating vendors a- and CLM applications instead of taking a step back first and saying, you know, "Hey, what are the ways that we can solve these problems?" And I, I think that, you know, that brings up something that we're seeing more often these days than obviously in the past, is just the use of AI and, uh, and applications to resolve, uh, issues or challenges that organizations are seeing. And Joel, I'm curious to see from a, um, a vendor's perspective, are you also seeing that customers are debating if Chat or Claude or another one of these AI tools might be able to piecemeal, you know, and solve some of these point problems that they're having versus looking at a, a more robust CLM tool? I... We see that 100% of the time of it's still... I think it's just a 2.0 version of buy versus build. So you're either gonna buy it from a vendor or you're gonna build it.

10:09When you go with an AI tool on top of a just DIY repository, that is not a CLM solution. So I think that there is a lot of confusion out there in the market as to what is what, and again, more need for a third party to come in and say, "AI might not solve your problem here." Or, "This new AI solution that this vendor is showing you is really cool, but it's not for you, or it might be for you in 24 months." So there's, I think, again, the need for having functional and technical expertise upfront to help the client understand how to sequence this stuff. Is it even relevant to me from an AI perspective? From a vendor perspective too, like, we are innovating as quickly as we can, and we also understand that there's a lot of noise out there that we're creating and that all of our competitors are creating, and it all looks the same.

11:06And I think that when you get underneath the hood, the products are very similar, too. So again, the need for a third party to come in and validate all this stuff and figure out, like, what's really needed when. Right. Or maybe they can also complement, right, uh, each other. Right. Maybe, right, you have a AI that is specific for your contract management, but, uh, maybe you can also use Claude just to write the email, right? Because during the, the negotiation process, there's a lot of communication, right? And maybe you just need something that already has, like, your brand and voice in a certain way, and maybe you can use it for that, that thing in specific, but not for the actual contract negotiation, right? Because like you said, this is, like, something that is already trained. It has some expertise behind it. There's been lawyers, there's been documents that have been un- analyzed, tags everywhere, where you can build it, like, smarter for your organization in specific, and especially when you wanna see on industry verticals, right?

12:07When this is something- Right... that works for this industry in specific. And maybe you've seen ChatGPT or Claude for a couple of months, and you've been using it for different stuff. Maybe you can use it- For writing the email, right? Okay, this is some of the bullet. This is my contract that I got from the CLM. Just put an email so I can send it for my team. Or maybe- Right... build a manual so I can send it to my team for the change management part so they can know how to use the actual CLM, right? AI is growing, and it's evolving so fast. Like, for me, for example- Yeah... like, I just watch, you know, like, Y Combinator podcasts every day, and there's something new. There's a new agent that they now can work with 20 different agents, right? Yeah. I agree. Well, I'll say this. So my background before I was in legal tech was digital marketing, and if anything has grown quickly and been disrupted constantly, it's digital marketing and web technology.

13:05So I've seen this before, and what I can say about CLM and all this is that ultimately need a place to keep the contracts. It doesn't matter how good the AI is. The, the key is organizing and knowing where things are and having a purpose-built system that does that. Then you can put, like you said, Pepe, then you can put the AI on top of it, but if you don't have a third party like a Koho or someone who understands the fundamentals of CLM, you're just building on a very shaky foundation. And I think AI is gonna advance, but I don't think the concept of having a repository and workflow that manages contracts is gonna change. That's always gonna be the same, and you always need expertise in that area. And, Joel, I think that brings us into... It's a good segue into my next question here. Sure.

13:57And that is, how does IntelAgree actually work with these partners, right, from a, a day-to-day perspective, and what do you look for when evaluating, you know, consulting firms or other types of partners to join IntelAgree's network? Sure. I'll do the, the first part, the second part first, which is we look for companies that specialize in CLM and are also nimble as well to be able to serve our clients quickly and efficiently. That's why we like the Koho class of partners because they're very specialized. They understand legal tech. We tend to steer away from, uh, like, big four-type companies because what we see is that they're not serving our clients properly in terms of coming in, doing very large engagements, doing very large implementations that don't necessarily serve the customer. So we feel very comfortable with working with boutique and purpose-built CLM implementation firms 'cause we know that you understand the situation, and then you're also right-sizing the implementations.

15:07You're not going too big and shocking the client with a, with a big number. So that, that's kinda how we pick, is we're picking there. And then in terms of, like, how do we inject... The first question, how do we use our partners? There's a couple different scenarios. Most people that are listening to this podcast are thinking of an implementation partner as someone who you buy the software, they come in, and then they install it for you essentially. Uh, we look at it as more of a holistic approach, so we look for partners that do advisory services on the front. Uh, we talk to a lot of prospects who are not ready to buy software yet, so it's important that we have partner that can step into that role of, like, "Hey, we talked to this prospect. They're still early. Marc and Koho, you should come in here, talk to them, maybe run an RFP process for them, and hopefully they'll pick IntelAgree at the end of the day. Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. We think we're the best."

16:05So that's that piece on the front end. Then we also have our partners help us sell and refine proposals for the client, so the more that they're involved in the sales cycle, the more they can be an advocate for the customer to be like, "Hey, we've seen this." Pepe, to your point, we are experts in manufacturing. We're experts in retail. We know what this customer's gonna need, and we know how to guide your software to get there. So that's really on the sales side. On the implementation side, obviously that's self-evident. We use our partners for that. And then also for the care and feeding part, if they are adding something to their stack, if they do wanna explore AI, if they do wanna explore legal tech that's not IntelAgree, we need partners to recommend so that we can serve our clients well, and that's really what we're trying to do. Awesome. And now let's think about they already chose their technology vendor, and they chose IntelAgree, right? Yeah. And this is important because this is just the technology piece. Now it's the CLM implementation.

17:11And do you have any red flag, or do you know any kind of sign that a CLM project is set up to succeed versus one that's going to struggle? Like, do you think, like, there's some kind of red flags that people need to be aware of? And I can give you one. Mine- Yeah... is when you leave everything to the IT guy, that they don't understand legal- Uh-huh... what legal do or what procurement do. That's my red flag, but I'm curious to know, what are yours? Yeah. It's interesting. We just did a corporate-wide initiative to kind of identify this, and it's great that you mention that. So I think that is definitely one, IT driven. I think another one, and I'm sure everybody on this podcast has heard, like, happiness equals reality minus expectations. So I think that part of it is having proper expectations of an implementation, how long it's gonna take.

18:09I think vendors often will, like, just undercut how long it takes to sell their so- how long it takes to implement in order to sell their software. So I think it is important that expectations are set properly. And then also The most important thing is having stakeholders that can get stuff done and are engaged. So every single time that we've had sketchy shit, stakeholder, um, communication and participation, it's a rough implementation. Every time we have a partner that's involved and we have customers that are leaning in, that's success. And then further to that, having a partner involved that's a third party really helps round up the client and make sure that they're heading on the right direction and they have the right resources allocated on their end. Yeah. When we're going through this process with customers, we always are looking for kind of those same check marks, or in some scenarios, right, they, they can be red flags.

19:09But it's so important for, if you are going through this evaluation process, understanding that you do need a project manager on your side of the coin, right? Please come with a project manager. You know, customers, if you are implementing a CLM, that is kind of my first absolute must, right? Uh, these projects are big lift, right? Whether, no matter what a, a vendor says or a, a consulting firm says, it's going to be a much bigger lift probably than you think it's going to be, especially if this is your first time doing it, right? So I just think that's so, so important when you're out there looking at tools, right? Start to do the work. And that is what the consulting firms are for, is to help you with that readiness piece, to help you gather the information, to make better choices, make informed choices about the vendors that you're even bringing into the process, right? And of course, once you do select a partner to move forward with, whether that be software and a consulting firm, or if you're, you're doing it all with one shop, you know, you'll feel confident that, that you've picked the correct partner to work with for hopefully a number of years to come.

20:13So to wrap this up, Joel, Pepe, I... Pep, do we, do you have any kind of final questions here for Joel? Any moving, maybe moving pieces or other updates you've seen recently in the space? Well, I mean, besides all the AI that we already discussed, maybe, and to follow up the last questions, what makes a CLM implementation successful, I think there should be a right balance between the customer, the vendor, and the implementation partner. The vendor, first of all, to not oversell, right? Mm-hmm. This is very important because a lot of the time that happens when people, they think that they can do everything with just clicking one button. From the customer side, very important what you, you, Marc just said, you need a project manager because this is, a lot of the time what happens during the RFP projects or maybe the first starting weeks of the CLM implementations, since customers have no idea on how a CLM works, they don't have something like benchmark on, okay, this is something that works like this.

21:21Like for example, procurement. Everybody in procurement has already used maybe an ERP system, right? SAP has been here, there forever- Right... or Oracle. So they already know, like, there are some standard processes that they never change. You just tweak it depending on your organization. With CLM, it's not something that is new because it's been there forever, but maybe there are no standard processes, and you need to do your homework to have all your processes, you know, well-designed so you can give them now to the implementation partner. And the implementation partner, I think my right balance is communication, right? Because this is a bigger lift for the implementation side if they don't have all the assets and all the information from the customer's side. Mm-hmm. And if the vendor oversells something, right now instead of having to spend 200 hours, maybe you'll need to spend 400 hours. And the customer is, is not going to be happy. So I think that's one last two cents that I wanted to give you guys here. And Joel, I don't know if, if you have something there to say.

22:28I think, yeah, to build on the, the topic of the whole thing of, like, if I could boil it down to one thing, always get a second opinion. So don't go to one place for everything. Get a second opinion. Ask around. There's a lot of experts on this topic, and don't do it alone. Or somebody- Yeah... that already implemented it, right? Exactly, exactly. Well, Joel, thank you so much for, for joining us. It was great to, to finally have you on the show. And- Yeah, for sure And, and thanks everybody for listening to another episode of Contract Heroes. This episode of the Contract Heroes is sponsored by Koho Consulting. Koho helps organizations of all shapes and sizes find, implement, and manage their chosen CLM tool. Whether your project is buy or sell side led, Koho can help you navigate the waters of the CLM space to make sure that you're getting a product that's going to fit like a glove years to come. If you'd like to learn more about Koho, visit their website at C-O-H-O consulting dot com.