Agiloft: Vendor Analysis, 2020 Update (Part 1) — Background & Solution Overview

The contract lifecycle management (CLM) market can have many inroads. Some vendors position themselves as fluent with the sales and CPQ world, basing their value props on enablement of frontline business users and acceleration of agreement execution. Others are buy-side specialists, prioritizing the ability to deeply model and track the quantities and conditions for manufacturing agreements to ensure continuity of supply. And still more are more legal specialists, built around the idea of empowering in-house counsel to become a trusted business partner and earn a “seat at the table.”

Agiloft, a contract lifecycle management vendor that has been operating since 1991, has never gone to market touting just a single set of use cases or a key department to enable. Instead, it has essentially turned this question around and asked, “What do you want us to be?”

This is because Agiloft, while used by more than 500 customers as a CLM system, is actually a no-code platform built upon a business process management framework that has been configured as a CLM application.

Said another way, Agiloft is like a LEGO set in which the code bricks have been assembled to deploy systems for CLM and asset management, among other use cases. This has allowed customers to collect, store and track any and all contract data and attachments that an organization might require, as well as design custom workflows that tie into other systems, making Agiloft both a CLM tool and a broader system for business process orchestration.

The potential for organizations looking to tap such powerful customization while obtaining core CLM capabilities are interesting, yet Agiloft, despite its age and consistently strong customer references, as illustrated its Value Leader ranking within our CLM SolutionMap, has never quite broken out as a well-known CLM pacesetter. Part of this has been a conservative approach to growth and investment — the vendor has historically focused its investment on product development, and it took on outside funding for the first time in 2020, nearly three decade after its founding.

But with a fresh round of external investment and a new CEO at the helm, is Agiloft positioned to break out of its no-code shell into a more widely acknowledged CLM pole position?

This Spend Matters PRO Vendor Analysis, which updates our 2017 review, provides facts and expert analysis to help buying organizations, suppliers and partners make informed decisions about Agiloft’s CLM and related capabilities. Part 1 of our analysis provides a company background and detailed solution overview. The rest of this three-part research brief covers product strengths and weaknesses, a look at Agiloft’s competitors, a company SWOT analysis and tech selection tips.