Picture a crucial contract trapped in a digital abyss, while stakeholders scramble to review it one after another, causing delays, errors, and missed opportunities. Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is the knight in shining armor. With automation, collaboration, and visibility, CLM transforms your procurement process into a streamlined powerhouse. Say goodbye to lost contracts and endless paperwork. Embrace CLM to unlock efficiency, compliance, and accelerated business growth. It's time to reclaim control over your contracts and triumph over the chaos.

In this episode of the Contract Heroes Podcast, we are thrilled to  sit down with Sol Brody. Sol is  the Executive Director, Legal Operations at Boeing. The Boeing Company, along with its affiliated companies, engages in the global design, development, manufacturing, sales, servicing, and support of commercial jetliners, military aircraft, satellites, missile defense systems, human space flight initiatives, as well as launch systems and services.

During our conversation with Sol, we discussed contract management challenges within a large organization and the implementation of a CLM solution at Boeing. Sol talks about his  role and emphasizes the importance of collaboration and efficiency in contract management processes. We also discuss the ownership of contracts at Boeing and the challenges faced in finding the right workflow solution. Sol  shares his experience fitting into his role and working in such a large organization. Our conversation also touches on key performance indicators (KPIs), automation, compliance reporting, and building a legal operations team. Sol  suggests identifying pain points within the organization and involving internal business partners to advocate for its necessity and help make a compelling case to the C-suite.

 

WHAT WE DISCUSS:

• [00:30] - Sol’s perspective about the conference and how it has changed since his first visit in 2019
• [01:24] - Ownership of contracts at Boeing and Sol’s role in assisting attorneys with a structured approach
• [02:48] - The implementation of a CLM solution at Boeing
• [04:14] - Challenges faced during the implementation of the CLM solution at Boeing
• [06:06] - The role of CLM solution in addressing pain points at Boeing 
• [07:44] - Sol’s experience of transitioning from one company to another
• [10:47] - Key performance indicators (KPIs) for legal operations during the post-signature phase of the contract lifecycle
• [12:44] - Opportunities for automation in compliance reporting
• [15:13] - Building a legal operations team and gaining support from the C-suite 

NOTABLE QUOTES:

• [00:06:07] - “I think part of it, it's just a lot of white space in between. We use a lot of emails. And so just imagine an email goes into a procurement agent, it sits for a couple of days until someone gets it. It then needs to work through the process. There's no less than ten other functions that need to weigh in on whether there's some element of privacy or global trade or insurance or some other risk that we're trying to mitigate. That has to be worked many times in serially rather than parallel.”  - Sol
• [00:13:52]  “Legal doesn't own the policy, we should not be stepping into that white space to tell you what the policy is supposed to mean, that's for the policy owner to do. So it's really about how does the right work get to legal, how do we deflect work that makes sense upstream either to the policy owner or to the requester, or that we can put into some sort of knowledge bank that people can go to and get a quick answer to.” - Sol

USEFUL RESOURCES & LINKS:

• Boeing Website
• Sol Brody on LinkedIn
• The Contract Heroes Podcast
  • on Apple Podcasts
  • on Spotify
• The Contract Heroes Official Website
• Marc Doucette on LinkedIn
• Pepe Toriello on LinkedIn
• Pepe Toriello on Twitter