For most life sciences companies, the contract management process – the very means by which you get your products into the marketplace – is becoming more and more obscure. The resulting unpredictability aggravates profit leakage, exposure to risk, and inadvertent illegalities, while reducing sales opportunities and increasing channel conflict. The more unmanageable the process, the more complicated it becomes with every change and update.

To answer these challenges, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies are beginning to assess better ways to manage their contract management systems and processes. They are recognizing the need for an integrated, synchronized, enterprisewide contract life cycle management process that is simple, manageable, and predictable. An integrated solution provides the transparency needed to satisfy the auditor, to balance pricing with go-to-market strategies, and to support sales and finance teams – including the ability to accurately predict margins and earnings per share.

SAP offers a fully integrated contract management solution for life sciences companies. The SAP Contract Management application aligns contract creation and pricing processes with membership and customer information, making it possible to initiate contracts quickly and accurately, post them to membership organizations, and administer the rebates and chargebacks cost-effectively. In supporting the contract life cycle from negotiations through financial reconciliation, the SAP Contract Management application provides a central, integrated repository for master data. Business processes are thus streamlined and synchronized to facilitate integration with government pricing processes needed to manage regulatory compliance and react to market price sensitivity.