A Secure Central Contract Repository
The digitization of contract documents is not a new concept. Companies are increasingly replacing paper files with digital files that either exist in a local or a virtual environment. This provides numerous advantages, including the ability to prevent any significant consequences if an organization were to suffer a flood or other natural disaster, and the ability to have all documents centrally located, yet securely accessible, from virtually anywhere. Holding physical copies on site might seem secure, but if an unforeseen event were to cause physical damage to paper documents, they may not be replaceable. Should a disaster occur to a digital repository, thoughtful achitectures assure that data duplication occurs at a site that is geographically separated, avoiding the possibility of data loss.
Cost Advantage
Cloud contract document storage is also advantageous from a cost perspective. Relying on hardware that is managed locally to store digital documents will almost always incur greater cost over time; as equipment and software must be purchased, maintained and managed; as hardware capacity is expanded to accommodate growing storage needs, and as hardware is replaced through attrition. All of these issues are typically managed by the Cloud or SaaS solution provider and are part of their pricing structure.
"Unlike with directly using hardware for storing your data, the capacity of your cloud storage can be easily adjusted depending on your needs," says a recent Cloud Tweaks article. "You can choose a storage allocation according to the amount and type of files that you intend to store online."
Improved Security
For these and other reasons, storing contract documents in the cloud is a much more efficient method than managing them locally. From a secuity perspective, storing documents in an off-site cloud environment, protects them from locally targeted attacks and weather-related incidents. More importantly, they are managed within a comprehensive, highly structured security architecture that is defined by consistent best practices. In general the cloud environment is monitored continuously (using both automated and human oversight) and the ability to globally respond to security threats can be implemented more rapidly.
Managing contracts with a cloud-based CLM system can protect important documents and can scale as your business and the number of contracts grows.
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