Contracts are at the heart of every business relationship, so it may be a little surprising that contract management pain is still a largely unsolved problem. Many vendors have tried, but no one vendor seems to have solved this successfully yet. When Malbek burst onto the Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) scene in 2017, the vendor landscape was littered with offerings that were expensive to buy and maintain and difficult to set up and use. Plus, many had a reputation for sub-par customer support and high employee turnover. From the beginning, Malbek’s goal was to create a solution that meets and exceeds the needs of customers from a variety of different aspects. By putting customer problems at the center of product development, positioning the Malbek solution became a pleasure.
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While great people may build great solutions, the best solutions are built by those who have experienced customer pain firsthand. At Malbek, this was an advantage because each co-founder had experienced some aspect of the pain of contract management at some point in the past.
For the CEO, Hemanth Puttaswamy, it was the pain of being an executive struggling to identify terms and obligations in contracts and understand the impact to his department. For the COO, Matt Patel, it was the pain of managing an older contracting solution that was built with outdated technology and couldn’t truly meet the needs of customers. And for the CTO, Madhu Poolu, it was the pain of transforming older, on-prem solutions to modern cloud applications. Bringing these experiences together was the perfect combination and gave birth to a vision for a company laser focused on solving customer problems.
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What pain did Malbek aim to solve?
Companies face many challenges related to their contracts. From lack of visibility into where their contracts are to missed milestones and obligations, many grapple with the financial consequences and overlooked revenue opportunities within their own agreements. And for those organizations that have tried to solve these problems with technology already, many still struggle with a clumsy user experience, heavy reliance on IT for customs, and inconsistent product performance. When contract professionals across departments like sales, legal, and finance are empowered to easily configure a product that is a delight to use, in many ways, the product sells itself.
We often encounter contract professionals at their point of greatest struggle. Meeting customers with empathy from the beginning is a vital part of coming up with a solution that solves actual challenges. Coming alongside them with understanding and support has been foundational to building trust and helping them find the light at the end of the contracting tunnel. By listening to the market, and developing a contract management solution that overcomes the pain faced by those working with contracts every day, hearing customers’ needs allows us to meet our own customers’ rigorous demands for faster contracting” this is the ultimate validation.
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