Managing contracts for the future

The initial situation posed a great challenge, since, for example, essential information - which was needed for decision-making - was not available at all. We knew how many contracts Octapharma AG had concluded. Most of the pdf-versions of these contracts were already stored in an stored in an electronic database.

However, on the one hand, this database was not well (sufficiently) maintained, and on the other hand, the database did not correspond to the current state of the art. For example, it was not possible for us to see at a glance whether the contracts stored in the database were still valid, whether they had perhaps already expired due to the passage of time, or even whether they were still in force. had already expired or had even been terminated in the meantime.

Similar document management systems were also in operation at two other locations, and individual departments also maintained their own filing systems or simply lists to manage the important contracts and documents. However, these systems were operated in an extremely inconsistent manner and thus (unfortunately) not every existing contract was recorded. It was therefore important to first find out how many active contracts there are within the Octapharma Group and who will be responsible for these contracts in the future. responsible for these contracts in the future. In addition, we seized the opportunity offered to us to also comprehensively tidy up. For example, contracts that were still active according to the contract text, but in fact no business relationships were maintained with the contractual partners, were terminated in the course of this clean-up process. terminated in the course of this clean-up process.

The project
First of all, the foundations had to be laid; a supplier had to be found and a product ("LCM") be selected, financing had to be secured, resources had to be procured, and the project team had to be determined. We decided that the project should be managed from within the legal department. be managed from within the legal department. To ensure the high quality of the entries in the LCM system, we wrote a very detailed user manual describing each step of the contract creation process. Every decision that was made in the 1st phase of the project (e.g. what contract types or document types there are, how a contract document should be named or which fields have to be filled in) is recorded there. In addition, we have hired a full-time employee whose tasks include both training the new employees (mostly via Webex) and monitoring the quality of the entries. the quality of the entries.

Initially, our main focus was on the active contracts of Octapharma AG, which could be transferred from the old document storage system to the LCM system with relatively little effort. system with relatively little effort. We decided to look at each contract document and only create a corresponding contract in the LCM system. only create a corresponding contract in the LCM system if the respective contract is still active. At the same time, we started adding the newly signed contracts to the LCM system immediately. Other employees have taken on similar tasks in the other departments (e.g. Purchasing) or other companies within the Octapharma Group.

Further milestones followed, such as the complete takeover of all patent and trademark documents of the Octapharma Group in cooperation with an external law firm. For this we used the file function and opened one file per country for each patent or trademark. Furthermore, we use the files for individual projects as well as for all company-relevant processes from the foundation to the deletion of the subsidiaries (one file per company).

At the moment, we are in the process of handing over more and more responsibility to the individual departments. This has the advantage that the relevant employees know their contracts best and the legal department is relieved. The disadvantage, however, is that the more people actively enter/edit data in the LCM system, the more difficult quality control becomes, and thus there is also a risk that the quality suffers.

We expect that in the foreseeable future (plan: 2015) all active contracts of the Octapharma Group will be visible in the LCM system will be visible. Of course, the work here never stops completely, as new contracts are also concluded again. We would like to use the freed-up capacities to focus our attention in the future on the development and improvement of existing processes (by means of BPM). as well as to use LCM in the area of compliance.