Linte and the evolution of contract management at Bayer

Bayer is a giant of the chemical and pharmaceutical sector that needs no introduction. Founded exactly 160 years ago in Germany, the company is one of the largest in its field, employing more than 100 thousand people worldwide. You probably also know the slogan, one of the longest lived in history, created in 1922: “if it is Bayer, it is good”.

However, contract management in the company’s licensing area in Brazil had room for improvement. Stefanie Hemmann, from the Marketing Licensing Latam team, says the team already used a platform, but it was not very productive and it was very hard to find the more than 800 contracts that had to be managed.

Two other challenges they faced were the lack of standardization of fields and the absence of control over contract renewal deadlines. “And so we looked for a tool to optimize our time and improve the team’s experience”, she recalls.

The main changes after the Linte rollout

Also part of the team responsible for managing the contracts of the Biotechnology licensing area is Paula Rodrigues, Licensing Strategy & Operational Excellence at the company. Although she joined Bayer more recently, she has already noticed the difference it makes to have contract software supporting day-to-day activities.

We have a need for control and organization, especially when we talk about contracts, which is a more complex subject. And Linte has been contributing to that, so that we can have this access in a dynamic, fast and easier way.

One aspect that caught the attention of the team responsible for choosing and implementing Linte was the support service: “always very willing to meet our needs, to really understand what we need”, says Stefanie.

Another point the pair highlights as essential to the success of the Linte and Bayer partnership is the customization that Linte CLM offers. Stefanie stresses:

Having this customization of the platform is one of the crucial points. Our area is LATAM, so the business models are completely different and we need to create a flow that really works, so that everyone can get into the system and understand what is going on.

Linte’s differentiators for day-to-day contract management

The contract search engine and the overall usability of the tool are two more points highlighted by the pair. Stefanie recalls that in the past there was no standardization of contract types when they were entered into the platform, for example, which made it hard to have a real view of all the documents under the team’s responsibility. Now, however, a few clicks are enough to get the view they want.

Linte is intuitive, it is easy to use, and even if it is your first time in the system you can navigate it comfortably.

Asked about the main characteristics of Linte CLM that help the team, Paula does not hesitate to list:

• Fast access to contracts, ensuring speed and efficiency in every task involving the documents.
• The way to filter and find information, making it even simpler to consult active contracts.
• The collaboration in creating new features, in which Bayer and Linte work as partners to identify, discuss and implement product improvements, always focused on the needs of whoever works with the tool every day.

And what if Linte did not exist?

Imagining what managing contracts without Linte would be like, Stefanie considers that the situation would be “pretty hard”: “we would have to put every document in a Drive and open file by file to see what it is about, read the contract... It would not be easy”.

She points out that there would also be the risk of missing a clause that had been negotiated, or losing an advantage in a negotiation because of the lack of quick access to contracts. “Having a platform that lets us organize contracts however we want, with filters, charts and a dashboard, makes all the difference”, she notes.

Without Linte we would still be in that scenario, with no view of what we have and with slow searches for certain information.

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