Obligation management: Why it’s important and what CLM end users can expect from their solutions

Contract lifecycle management (CLM) tools tend to specialize in a variety of areas to serve diverse use cases. Some may excel in metadata extraction for repository management. Others may focus on redlining and negotiations for counter-party collaboration. Others still may offer robust clause libraries with alternate/fallback clauses and perhaps even automated guidance.

However, few CLM vendors specialize in obligation management. Of course, many allow users to specifically model obligations, and some do so with more advanced features than others, but few claim obligation management as a main selling point. Nevertheless, it is a crucial element of CLM for many companies, albeit a poorly understood one. So, we believe it necessary to examine what exactly obligation management is and what CLM solutions can provide to facilitate it.