Sourcing Champions named consulting partner of SimpliContract

European consultancy Sourcing Champions has agreed a partnership with SimpliContract, deepening its procurement technology offerings. 

From its bases in Amsterdam and Munich, Sourcing Champions helps clients across sectors with developing their procurement strategy and streamlining their operations. One of the key processes the firm specialises in is contract lifecycle management (CLM) – the management of contract portfolios from start (initiation) to end (compliance and renewal), supporting legal, sales & purchasing teams.

“Implementing contract lifecycle management can lead to significant improvements in contract formations, negotiations, compliance, performance and searchability. Together with better risk detection and signature efficiency we speed up and enhance post-signature contract value creation”, explained Robert Waalder, managing partner of Sourcing Champions.

Waalder added, “vice versa, companies that fail to correctly manage their supplier contracts, become blind to certain opportunities and risk present in their procurement strategy.” 

This in turn can bring rise to a range of costs and foregone opportunities, including “wasting resources, holding relationships with the wrong suppliers and losing track of deadlines and obligations.” Most importantly”, he explained, “it creates a situation where contracts are not connected nor integrated in a company’s broader sourcing strategy.”  

This is where SimpliContract comes in. The company, founded in early 2020 in India, applies a range of cutting-edge technologies – such as natural language processing, optical character recognition and artificial intelligence – to enhance internal contract management, as well as integrate external legal information into contracts. SimpliContract currently has more than 6,000 enterprise users, representing in excess of over $4 billion in contract value. 

The SimpliContract system operates as part of a CRM ecosystem including the likes of Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, as well as other ERP systems and sourcing systems. 

By partnering with SimpliContract, Sourcing Champions will be able to help its clients transform their “contract management into a competitive advantage”, said Waalder. The agreement will see Sourcing Champions become the trusted consultancy and implementation partner in Europe,   

The managing partner added that the deepening of its contract lifecylce management offering is part of its strategy to be “a leading player in the sourcing strategy-to-contract space.” 

According estimates from SimpliContract founders Guru Venkatesan, Jinaraj PG and Makesh Kumar, the global contract lifecycle management market is poised for strong growth: from $1.5 billion today to $5.2 billion by 2027. The Indian firm, which is backed by private equity, aims to drive and ride this growth to become a global player.