How Legal and

Procurement Can Partner

for Business Efficiency

January 2024
 Ashlyn Donohue
Director, Legal at LinkSquares

Speaker
Jonathan Greenblatt
VP, Legal at LinkSquares

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The Power of Partnership
Strong organizational alignment results in increased deal velocity,
operational efficiency gains and risk mitigation
● Strategic alignment & shared goals
● Clearly defined roles and responsibilities
● Centralized process
● Enablement and readiness
● Risk mitigation & compliance

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Consequences of Poor Collaboration
● Delays in the procurement process: decentralized workflows and ambiguity in each team’s roles
and responsibilities results in friction in the process and delays

● Missed approvals / compliance risks: potential increase in compliance risks if cross-functional

review and/or approvals are missed

● Misaligned contract terms: lack of communication across the teams may result in contractual
terms that are not aligned with the team’s objectives

● Loss in cost savings: lack of partnership may result in missed cost savings

● Employee frustration: employees purchasing products and/or services become frustrated,

resulting in risk they’ll move forward without following the process

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 What is the current state of your
procurement process?
POLL QUESTION - Robust procurement function
- Some in Finance’s side hustle
- Legal is filling these shoes
- There is no process - it’s the wild west

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 Dedicated team running point on all
01 procurement requests (everything goes
through them)

What does procurement look like? Finance team member’s side hustle, with a
02
“lightweight” procurement touch

Procurement Flavors
Legal is responsible for what traditionally may
03
be procurement activities (pricing?)

No one takes ownership - decentralization

04 results in each department owning their own
process

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Strategic alignment and shared goals

Clear Objectives Key Performance Enablement and Cross-Functional

Clearly Communicated Metrics Readiness Plan Collaboration

● Identify a common ● Request Volume - ● Create an ● Procurement

objective that new requests enablement and ● Legal
aligns with the submitted readiness plan that ● Security
overall company ● Service Level creates ● IT
goals Agreements (SLA) cross-functional ● Privacy
● Distribute goals to alignment and ● Finance
cross-functional provides ● Business Team
stakeholders awareness of the
overall objectives

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Scenario 1
- What are the operational
impacts of not signing by the
end of the week?
- Does the time-crunch impact
how legal approaches the
review?
- What steps can be taken to
come to agreement faster?
Last Minute “Review and Approve” Request
Procurement has been working with the HR team for months to
negotiate a complex deal with a new Human Resources
Information System (HRIS). In order to migrate systems before
the current provider’s contract is over, it's critical that your
company signs with the new vendor this week. Legal is engaged
for review at 4PM on Thursday with an urgent ask to review and
approve for signature.
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Clearly defined roles & responsibilities

● Headcount efficiency: individuals clearly understand the scope of their

responsibilities, and work is not duplicated across teams

● Reduce friction and consistency in support: clear expectations across teams results
in consistency in support provided and reduced friction or conflict across teams

● Approvals/reviews completed: all required approvals and reviews are completed by

the appropriate teams, and there is no misset expectation that another team will
complete a specific task

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 01 Identify product or service need

Centralized Process Find potential suppliers and evaluate

02
Streamlined and centralized processes enable the proposals
adoption of operational efficiency measures aimed
at scaling support in a consistent manner
03 Negotiate contract terms and get approvals

04 Sign and receive products or services

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 Are your approvals run in
parallel or sequential?
POLL QUESTION - Approvals are obtained in order
- Everyone reviews and approves at the
same time
- Approvals - what are those?

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Parallel or Sequential Approvals
Benefits of parallel approvals Benefits of sequential approvals

- Increased deal velocity - Headcount efficiency

(no one team resulting in significant delays) (no legal review until finance/security
have signed off)

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Scenario 2
- Would you take a different
approach negotiating?
- What terms are in your PO?
- Does anyone internally need
to review/sign-off?
Critical Technology Provider
Product submits an order form for a critical technology provider
that is used in your software and the cost is $5,000, but the
governing terms and conditions contained in a hyperlink include
one or two terms that as a company you refuse to agree to. The
vendor refuses to entertain any edits, and Legal needs to
determine how to proceed.
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Understand what is being purchased
Business and commercial aspects Contract aspects

● What department is making the ● What type of agreement is required?

purchase?
● Do we have an existing agreement in
● What is being bought and why? place and when was it last reviewed?

● What approvals are required and have ● What is being bought and what type of
they been obtained? data will be shared/received?

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 Centralize and streamline
Centralize workflows providing
greater cross-functional
process with visibility and alignment
Automation creates
efficiency by reducing
manual effort and
minimizing risk of errors

technology
Leveraging technology to implement
innovative solutions to optimize for
efficiency

Support compliance Enable real-time

initiatives by centralizing reporting on key metrics
approval workflows, such
as for audit purposes

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 Does your procurement team
review and/or change contract
provisions without legal review?
POLL QUESTION - Absolutely not
- Depends on the agreement type and
cost
- Procurement is responsible for certain
provisions in all contracts

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Enablement and Empower cross-functional teams review and approval

readiness ● Create enablement materials to empower your teams to

understand the process, and right-size their risk review
and make autonomous decisions
● Business readiness and enablement materials (such as a
business checklist)
● Define and report on your success metrics

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Create enablement materials

Vendor playbook

● Add a risk-matrix and data

classification table to help your
team right-size review
○ Risk matrix by agreement
type

● Create separate sections for

various agreement types (SaaS
vendor terms and a hotel
agreement are not the same)

● Include the process, required

approvals, and each team’s
roles and responsibilities 18
Business readiness and enablement

Business Checklist*

❏ Entity Name
❏ Entity Address
❏ Contact Information
❏ Accounts Payable Email
❏ Products and Pricing

*Sample items
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Define and report on success metrics
Process/system adoption success*
● Readiness Consumption:
○ %age of recipients who opened the
email
○ Number of impacted stakeholders who
watched a training video / reviewed
content
● User Adoption:
○ Ideal user engagement metrics by
time-period
● NPS (Satisfaction):
○ Surveys sent to key stakeholders
○ In-person feedback sessions with
frequent requester(s)
*Sample items
Contract metrics
● Volume Reporting:
○ New requests submitted
○ Unique requests reviewed
○ Unique agreements signed
○ Request volume by legal team member
● Request Types:
○ Number of requests based on request
type (SaaS vendor vs. hotel)
○ Number of requests by business team
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Scenario 3 Cancellation Risks and Right Approver
- Who is responsible for
obtaining approvals as The CEO’s executive assistant submits a $1M event agreement
part of the initial deal for the company kickoff in 2025, but there is no cancellation
cycle? right. The executive assistant is insisting this is fine and there is
- Who would review / absolutely no risk that we’ll cancel, and is pushing to sign
sign off on this immediately.
provision?

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Risk mitigation & compliance initiatives
Risk mitigation
● Vendor due diligence
● Centralized workflow for approvals
(creates transparency across
cross-functional teams)

Compliance support

● Transparent audit trails (such as approvals)

● Creates efficiencies in compliance
monitoring (such as identifying vendors
processing PII)

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Scenario 4
- Can the language be
narrowed to mitigate
risks/concerns?
- Who ultimately makes the
decision as to whether to
restrict potential business
opportunities?
Technology/Product Agreements
Finance wants to purchase a software solution, and the terms
include a non-compete that places restrictions on customers
ability to develop products that function or have features the
same or similar to the software. While the product isn’t the same
as what your company sells, this overly broad non-compete
language may restrict development in the future.
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Questions?
Additional
Resources
● eBook: Legal, Procurement, and the Power
of Better Partnership
●

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Thank you!

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