Spotlight

Report:

The Forrester Wave™: Contract Lifecycle Management, Q2 2023

How does Forrester define the Contract Lifecycle Management market in 2023?

The shift toward digital business has made CLM technology essential for modernizing commercial activity. Before the pandemic, CLM was about efficiency and speed; today, critical insights and strategic value are must-haves. Greater expectations and economic pressure drive customers to seek CLM that supports contracts enterprisewide throughout the lifecycle with AI-powered analytics, integrations, and workflow flexibility as differentiated capabilities, while digital repositories and contract templates have become table stakes.

Key Facts for The Forrester Wave™: Contract Lifecycle Management, Q2 2023 in 2023

How did the Contract Lifecycle Management market evolve in 2023?

What product features are required to be included in this year's evaluation?

What are the common features of top products in the Contract Lifecycle Management space?

No common features specified.

Scope Exclusions

Inclusion Criteria

Vendors must, among other requirements:

Offering Strengths — Relative Weighting

Strategy Strength — Relative Weighting

FAQs

Q: What does this research cover?

A: This research evaluates 13 contract lifecycle management (CLM) providers across 26 criteria, analyzing their current offerings, strategy, and market presence. The evaluation covers vendors' capabilities in contract digitization, creation, negotiation, execution, analysis, reporting, workflow, AI capabilities, integrations, and support for both buy-side and sell-side contracts. It assesses how well providers support pre- and post-signature processes, meet enterprisewide needs, leverage AI for workflow, and integrate with upstream and downstream systems.

Q: Who should use this research?

A: Contract management professionals, procurement teams, legal departments, sales organizations, and HR teams evaluating CLM solutions should use this research. It is particularly valuable for organizations seeking to standardize contracts on a single platform, those undergoing digital transformation, companies looking to consolidate technology investments, and buyers who need to compare vendors based on specific criteria such as AI capabilities, integration options, workflow flexibility, and support for different contract types. The customizable Excel-based vendor comparison tool allows readers to adapt criteria weightings to their specific needs.

Q: What are the mandatory features of vendors included in this market?

A: Vendors included in this evaluation must have at least $20 million in annual CLM revenue, support a broad range of use cases enabling holistic CLM (at least 50% of core capabilities including digitize/aggregate/categorize contracts, create/negotiate/execute contracts, analyze and report on key data, and optimize contracts), provide both buy-side and sell-side functionality with at least 20% customer adoption for each, and demonstrate interest from or relevance to Forrester clients through inquiry requests or market capabilities and presence.

Q: What are some reasons for not being included in this report?

A:

  • Annual CLM revenue below $20 million threshold
  • Limited use case coverage (less than 50% of core CLM capabilities)
  • Lack of balanced buy-side and sell-side functionality
  • Insufficient customer adoption (less than 20%) for either buy-side or sell-side
  • Limited relevance to Forrester client base
  • Insufficient market presence or capabilities

Q: What should buyers consider when evaluating products in this market?

A:

  • Support for both pre- and post-signature processes throughout the contract lifecycle
  • Ability to meet contracting needs of the entire organization including procurement, sales, and HR
  • AI capabilities for workflow including voice-enabled search, smart clause recommendations, auto-redlining, and sentiment analysis
  • Native integrations with upstream applications (sourcing tools, CRM) and downstream systems (invoicing, financial transaction systems)
  • Contract intelligence and analytics capabilities for actionable insights
  • Workflow flexibility and configurability
  • Implementation success rates and total cost of ownership
  • Global delivery capabilities and multilingual support

Q: How has the Contract Lifecycle Management market evolved in 2023?

A:

  • Technology consolidation as a strategic move for digital business transformation
  • Acceleration of AI capabilities into legal technology and CLM
  • Shift from CLM as efficiency tool to strategic value and insights platform
  • Demand for enterprisewide contract support across procurement, sales, and HR
  • Increased integration requirements with upstream applications and downstream systems
  • Greater emphasis on post-signature processes and contract compliance
  • AI-powered analytics becoming differentiated capabilities versus table stakes

Q: What differentiates Strength of Offering vs. Strength of Strategy?

A: Current Offering evaluates the strength of vendors' present product capabilities across contract digitization, analysis, creation, management, workflow, reporting, platform capabilities and user experience. Strategy evaluates the strength of vendors' future direction including their vision, innovation, roadmap, partner ecosystem, global delivery strategy, community engagement, and adoption initiatives.

Reference

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