Emptoris vs. Ironclad

If you have a highly bureaucratic organization that is heavily focused on procurement, Emptoris can provide some value. It seemed to be very good at linking the contract information to procurement for better spend control. If you are trying to implement a standalone contract management solution that allows you to easily create contracts and store them in a central location, this isn't the tool for you. There doesn't appear to be a simplified implementation. In general, when a SaaS solution has a complicated and expensive implementation, I am very skeptical. This does not show that the vendor is trying to move customers forward on a single code base. If that many things need to be done during implementation, you are starting to customize the solution for every customer. This hurts the vendor's ability to scale and make improvements in the future.

Incentivized

I think it worked realllly well at my previous company where we used it for a very simple form that just required one simple signature from both sides- this was a form used to record custom pricing/discounts for a product that typically was not discounted. In my current role, there are many more required fields on the form/contract, and can be multiple levels of approvals on one side, and then possibly multiple levels of approvals/signatures on the other side. I've never used another solution in the exact same way (like DocuSign) to be able to compare experiences, but on Ironclad, understanding where I am in the completion process can be confusing. Within the app, I wish it was more of just a checklist or schedule of what needs to happen, but it's not written out that clearly. Lastly, there is something wrong with our notifications (I'm not sure if this is specific to my company's settings)- I frequently get 'contract completed' or 'contract signed' email notifications even if that hasn't occurred. They seem to correlate with updating the form or refreshing the sync from SFDC.

• Document protection - the Check Out contract feature is a great way to allow external parties to make modifications to contract language without the ability to accept those changes. Those redlines can then be imported back into Emptoris and reviewed or further modified as needed.
• Notifications & reminders - you can trigger an email manually from within the system, or you can configure automated notifications andreminders to alert users when a new task is received or has aged a given amount of days, etc.
• Interview wizard - there is a lot of value in the interview wizard. Administrators can configure screens with selecting options via check boxes, radio buttons, or typed-in values. Variables and conditions can be used to selectively populate fields within the contract or apply other options, making for a quick and convenient method to generate contracts conforming to corporate standards.
• Field customization - administrators can customize a list of options for various fields including contract substatus, address type, and user created business term variables.
• Approvals - many different options are available to configure approvals to trigger automatically upon presenting and/or executing the contract including specific individuals, one or more approver groups, or based upon various criteria including terms within the contract, type of contract, or the contract's owning organization.

Incentivized

• Keep track of legal documents versions
• Approve legal workflows
• Forward email threads to the legal workflow

Incentivized

• Reporting, Emptoris comes with standard reports which can not always can be fit into our business. This needs to be improved. I hope Emptoris is addressing this issue in their latest releases.
• Though the feature of editing language in MS word is excellent, loading MS word takes time.

• Contract link feature in the case of amendment/addendum.
• Auto document retention feature (expiration and deletion).

Incentivized

There are a lot of new, exciting products coming out in every field and I believe that there is always something better right over the horizon. If it was my choice, I would review my usage of Emptoris and other software periodically to make sure I'm using the most efficient software possible.

Incentivized

Emptoris is a pretty robust tool overall. Learning curve is small and it is simple to use

Incentivized

Ironclad is the best tool I have used to date, to manage workflow and tickets. It was very easy to use and navigate from the very first time I used it. My time is very valuable and I don't have time to sit in training sessions, simply to use a new product. I'm happy to say that I was never formally trained on Ironclad as it simply wasn't necessary.

Incentivized

The above rating for the overall support from Emptoris is for their product / product support, roll out training and refresher training / ongoing training, which is not only good but superior. There is no major or reconizable bad review that can be given to Emptoris at this point in time, from where is stands.

Incentivized

I haven't used the support services for IronClad, but I understand from our legal team, the support is very good, they have replied and provide solutions quickly and effectively. I have used the documentation and support pages which are very complete and which have been updated given the user interface updates.

Incentivized

I am a fan of Ariba to be used for the entire lifecycle of Sourcing. From RFX's to cutting PO's. I feel Emptoris misses the boat on the idea of a "One Stop Shop" for all of your Sourcing/Purchasing needs

Incentivized

Miles ahead of LinkSquares

Incentivized

• We won the 2005 Baseline Magazine Award for best ROI related to a technology implementation with an ROI 5544% (see 2005 Baseline ROI Awards, GlaxoSmithkline).
• We always felt we could do "two times the work, with half the people and deliver double the savings".

Incentivized

• At Gusto, where we operated on no contracts for many years, Ironclad allowed us to create a very simple process for getting approval for, and keeping records of, customized pricing on our new, high-end plan.
• Wasn't part of the buying committee, but in my current role it's been heavily utilized externally for customer contracts, but also internally for employee agreements.
• I don't have any actual numbers, and don't have a way to compare it to any prior e-signature setup.