Agiloft has announced that Epicor has selected its Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) platform to transform its contract-driven processes across its global operations. Epicor is a global ERP software company with over 4,100 employees and 21,000 customers. It intends to integrate the Agiloft platform with its internal systems, which include Salesforce and its business intelligence and ERP solutions.
The press release revealed that Epicor will leverage the Agiloft platform across sales and procurement. The Agiloft solution should reduce the time spent on contract negotiations for all parties. The system was chosen for its user-friendly interface. The teams will leverage the data within the contracts to optimise engagements and ensure compliance. Agiloft believes that it will offer Epicor a competitive advantage, though it does not specify how it will achieve this. However, reaching an agreement following selection will shorten the time to deployment.
The release also indicates that Agiloft CLM will help improve internal business processes, perhaps indicating that the firm will roll the solution out beyond sales and procurement to other disciplines, such as HR. With a CLM platform in place, Epicor can better manage its contracts, both for those with business partners and internally.
Robin Bell, Senior Procurement Manager at Epicor, said, “Agiloft’s software is a perfect fit for our needs. Agiloft offered the flexibility and robustness we needed, while also being extremely easy for non-technical practitioners to configure, maintain, and administer without any formal training.”
Could this be more than just Epicor using Agiloft?
What isn’t clear is which of the solutions Epicor will integrate Agiloft to. It seems likely that it will be to Epicor Kinetic, its modern cloud ERP solution. If it does so, will it productise the integration so that it can offer the solution to clients? The possibility of extending its ERP solutions for customers that make, move and sell products with the Agiloft CLM platform is intriguing. This does not appear to be a strategic partnership yet, with Robin Bell rather than Steve Murphy, CEO of Epicor, offering the canned comment.
However, the crux of the announcement seems targeted at Epicor using the solution for its operations. The companies have two options for the integration. Epicor will not want to leverage its Integration cloud, powered by Jitterbit, to achieve the integration if it is looking beyond itself. Agiloft is not one of the applications listed as already connected within the integration cloud, nor is it currently listed on the Jitterbit site.
Alternatively, Agiloft will push its integration hub, powered by Workato. However, the Workato site indicates that it has not yet developed an integration with Epicor. It will be interesting to see which IPaaS solution is selected. Completing the integration will benefit the three companies. The simplest route might be the Agiloft integration hub. Powered by Workato, it already integrates with other ERP solutions. Jitterbit does not appear to have any integrations with CLM platforms. It is an important decision.
Epicor to benefit from CLM for internal and external contracts
Regardless of what the future holds, Epicor will be able to leverage a CLM platform that can automate its workflows, regardless of their complexity. It can do so using the easy-to-use Agiloft no-code automation engine. Using Agiloft CLM, Epicor can streamline its contract lifecycle, reduce revenue leakage and gain better visibility of its contractual risk and regulatory compliance for its legal team.
Eric Laughlin, CEO of Agiloft, commented, “In a rapidly changing world, contracts and business execution must be in sync, but many businesses’ contracting processes are out of step with the dynamic needs of the wider business, leading to misalignment and missed opportunities. This disconnect between core business goals can hinder growth and profitability. By choosing Agiloft, Epicor will bridge that gap.
“Agiloft will empower Epicor’s teams to manage their contracts effectively, while seamlessly integrating data from those contracts into their broader business workflows. We provide the technology Epicor’s teams need to create contracts on-demand, tailored to their specific needs, ensuring everyone involved is informed and aligned, so they can drive business goals and accelerate execution.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
Epicor creates and sells software for the make, move and sell economy. It will already have over 20,000 customer contracts in place that Agiloft can help manage and extract information from. If Agiloft helps Epicor to understand and extract value from the contracts, the ROI could be quick.
What will be interesting is if Epicor develops a case study with Agiloft about what it has managed to achieve with the CLM solution. This should cover not just new contracts but with its historic ones. That it is also looking to integrate the software into its technology stack could make this announcement even more interesting. Once integrated, will Epicor consider a go-to-market strategy with Agiloft? It is a combination that will make sense for both companies. Epicor serves several industries; automotive, building supply, distribution, manufacturing, and retail. Within those there are many B2B vendors where an integrated offering makes sense.
The first step, however, will be for Epicor to deploy and integrate the Agiloft solution. That could take some time, and no timescales for the deployment have been given.
