Contract Management Made Easier With New SoftwareContract Management Made Easier With New Software

When Brad Snook went shopping for a customer-relationship management suite 18 months ago, he had a unique requirement--one he says only one vendor could meet. The VP of client-relationship management for United Asset Coverage Inc. wanted a tool that would help the company improve sales and better manage its long-term contracts.

Oracle said it was planning such an application, helping it seal a deal with the Naperville, Ill., provider of telecommunications and data-networking maintenance services. "The other CRM providers didn't have a service-contracts module that allowed me to manage long-term contracts and entitlements," Snook says.

Oracle last week rolled out the resulting contract-management modules, Sales Contract and Contract Intelligence. The software helps sales and service professionals create, negotiate, manage, and renew complex service contracts with customers, suppliers, and partners. The modules include forecasting tools to predict up-sell and cross-sell opportunities and analytics to perform tasks such as evaluating customer value. What's more, they can pull order and inventory information from Oracle's back-office applications--another key selling point for Snook, whose company uses Oracle's financial and inventory applications.

United Asset Coverage has been testing and using the Oracle software since August. It's helped the company eliminate manual invoices for service contracts, Snook says. Monthly bills vary depending on what work gets done. Now, because the software manages all work being performed under the service contracts, bills are issued automatically.

Snook says his company hasn't used the software long enough to evaluate return on investment, but he has seen an improvement in customer satisfaction. For example, customers get a comprehensive invoice that includes a detailed list of every charge for every site that United services. "That's something our customers were looking for," he says.

Contract renewal is vital. "There's a lot of effort and cost associated with renewing a relationship with

the client," Snook says. "If we can shift the long-term renewal rates by a couple of percentage points, the software will more than pay for itself." Oracle declined to disclose pricing.