Ecteon
Solutions that Support Strategic Contracting Initiatives

“Many businesses are challenged with document language consistency and accessibility along with disparate storage and clunky, hit or miss workflows that gravely affect contract accuracy, deadlines, and renewals,” said Richard Eckerstrom, CEO, Ecteon. As a result, companies lose control over contract commitments, and encounter incremental risk. Additionally, stakeholders are demanding software platforms that offer a 360-degree view of contract creation history to make better strategic contracting and negotiating decisions.

To keep pace with ever-increasing regulatory demands, enterprises need more than just a big filing cabinet. They need a collaborative Contract Management solution with capabilities that deliver contracting intelligence.

Ecteon—Celebrating 30 years of pioneering contract management

Richard Eckerstrom founded Ecteon in 1986—and this year, the team celebrated its 30th anniversary. Prior to founding Ecteon, Eckerstrom spent years working in corporate finance, strategic planning, software marketing and new product development—experiencing first-hand how important contracts were to the lifeblood of any business. In the early 90’s, Eckerstrom established the company as a leader in contract consulting for entertainment industries such as Sony, Time- Warner and Universal. Many of those companies are still customers today, thanks to the company’s Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) product, Contraxx.

With primary offices in Brentwood, TN and New York, NY, Ecteon delivers tailored, CLM solutions for Fortune 500 and mid-sized companies that have complex contracting environments. What makes Ecteon different from other companies is its highly tailored system delivery. “We’ve heard time again from long-standing customers that our capacity to listen and respond with individually configured systems that mirror their business practices is a key differentiator for us,” said Eckerstrom.

Meeting changing needs of businesses

“Today, contract management has to cross geography, multiple industry regulatory bodies, and incorporate all stakeholders in the enterprise seamlessly,” said Eckerstrom. Contraxx has been through multiple iterations over the years, adapting to the changing contracting needs of businesses.

It designs workflows to effectively manage all types of agreements. The system incorporates collaborative editing and commenting features, providing users with improved version control and finalized document accuracy.

With Contraxx in place, enterprises can ensure contracting processes are optimized for efficiency while following policies so that opportunities won’t be overlooked and compliance will be maintained

The solution features a reporting dashboard, which displays automated notifications based on contract changes like price, quantity, clauses and date fields.

Prompts and alerts are issued to insure traceability and compliance. “With Contraxx, enterprises can ensure that critical dates won’t be missed, opportunities won’t be overlooked and policy compliance will be first priority,” explained Eckerstrom.

As more businesses transfer documents electronically, Contraxx offers multi-level security access as well as e-Signature and Single- Sign-On processes. To make the system seamless across a broad base of enterprise users, Contraxx features open APIs which easily integrate with e-Signature, Single-Sign-On, and numerous other systems.

Contraxx—Solving enterprise-wide challenges

“Listening and learning from our customer’s needs allowed Contraxx to become one of the most robust and flexible solutions available,” said Eckerstrom.

Contraxx supports businesses strategic goals as well. For example, Blue Shield of California (BSCA), a non-profit providing health, dental, vision, Medicaid and Medicare healthcare service plans in California, wanted to resolve inconsistencies and inaccuracies in documents. It required a leading-edge contract management solution to create, manage, and store post-sale artifacts for its four million members.

Ecteon’s Contraxx helped BSCA greatly reduced its in-process document inventory by reducing contract creation time from weeks to days.

What’s Next?

For better procurement and contracting strategies and product extensions to more customers, Ecteon is increasing its partner base with other global leaders in the CLM industry and continues to expand its vertical scope.