Salesforce CLM: Streamlining Salesforce Contract Lifecycle Management

6 min read

Nikita R.

Media-savvy content creator, with a curiosity for all Salesforce experiences.

Updated: Jan 13th, 2025

What is Salesforce CLM?

Contract lifecycle management, often called CLM, is a process organizations across multiple industries use to manage contracts. The contract lifecycle is a long process and consists of many stages, from creating contracts, negotiating with stakeholders, ensuring contract compliance, and executing and renewing contracts. Not forgetting all the smaller workflows and tasks associated with approving, storing, tracking, and reporting on contracts.

So, what is CLM in Salesforce? Salesforce has a range of features to help with many tasks and processes for CLM, but they do not have a dedicated, out-of-the-box solution. Though not to worry, there are options! For instance, you can integrate third-party CLM applications with Salesforce to speed up workflows and processes.

CLM Salesforce: What is Salesforce Contract Management Software?

CLM software for Salesforce can be explicitly used to manage contracts throughout their lifecycle. When installing a CLM software solution for Salesforce, ensure it has features to create and electronically sign contracts. Automating any tasks in the contract management lifecycle and ensuring that documents can be stored in a repository are also helpful features.

What are the Benefits of Integrating CLM Software with Salesforce?

Finding a CLM Salesforce solution has many benefits. One of the most significant benefits is working with your data and documents in a single location instead of jumping through different platforms. Let’s take a look at some of the other benefits of CLM software for Salesforce below that can help speed up work processes:

Data can be pulled from Salesforce and inserted automatically into contracts so that you can reduce any errors associated with manual data entry, such as typos.

CLM software allows stakeholders from multiple departments across your organization to collaborate on a contract in Salesforce during any phase of the contract lifecycle.

View, work, and report on your contract, customer, and sales data in Salesforce.

Titan CLM beats the competition as it is much more reasonably priced and has a much deeper and complete Salesforce integration. With Titan CLM, you can view a thorough audit trail to see when all parties involved in the agreement send, view, and sign a document.

Titan CLM allows your workforce to make your biggest deals in minutes, all from within Salesforce. Let’s take a look at some of the features you can use to manage contracts with Titan CLM:

Titan provides a no-code builder for all your contract lifecycle management needs.

Redline, edit and comment on any contract.

Titan CLM simplifies negotiations by allowing them to take place in Word with our intuitive redlining and commenting tools.

Contracts can be electronically signed quickly and securely.

Titan provides collaboration features to add participants at any stage of the CLM journey.

Multiple internal and external parties can collaborate on a document in real time to close deals in minutes instead of days.

Document owners can approve or reject modified contracts to make the best deals for their organization.

Manage, review, and track contract edits directly in Salesforce for a 360-degree view of its lifecycle.

View all content inserted or deleted in a contract in real-time thanks to our deep Salesforce integration.

Titan CLM is more competitively priced than leading alternatives!

CLM Vs. CRM Software

The first difference between CRM and CLM, is that CLM stands for customer lifecycle management. And, what does CRM stand for in Salesforce? It stands for customer relationship management. These concepts are related, but they are unique practices that focus on different business areas. One thing that these two concepts share is that they have a lot of manual tasks and workflows that could benefit from CLM and CRM automated software.

Take a look at our table below for a quick comparison between CLM and CRM software:

	CLM	CRM
Focus	CLM software helps manage contracts throughout the contract and customer lifecycle. The different stages include awareness, acquisition, retention, and advocacy. Software like Titan CLM can optimize processes in every stage of the contract lifecycle or customer journey.	CRM software is designed to help manage customer relationships. Salesforce is an example of a CRM platform that can organize and store customer data, track customer interactions, and automate marketing and sales workflows.
Features	CLM software has features and functionalities found in CRM software and more. Salesforce CLM tools and applications can be used to acquire customers, streamline onboarding ventures, and apply customer success and retention strategies. Advanced CLM software can also provide data analysis and reporting tools to assist marketing research on customers.	CRM software are not all the same, but generally speaking, the features should empower employees to manage contacts, track leads or opportunities, automate sales pipelines, automate marketing initiatives, and assist with a ticketing system for customer support teams.
Stages	CLM software can assist throughout the customer journey in marketing, sales, onboarding, customer support, and loyalty schemes.	CRM software is helpful in the customer journey stages for generating leads, managing sales, and providing post-sales support.

To summarize, CRM focuses on enhancing customer relationships, whereas CLM assists the entire customer and contract lifecycle. Even though these approaches have different focuses, organizations use both processes to manage customer relationships. Integrating CLM software with a CRM platform, such as a Titan and Salesforce integration, can give your business a complete view of customer data to improve various business operations and digital experiences.

CLM vs CPQ

Like comparing CLM against CRM, many readers also ask for a comparison between these two and a CLM meaning for Salesforce. As previously stated, Salesforce CLM means Contract Lifecycle Management, whereas CPQ is short for Configure, Price, Quote.

Salesforce CLM and Salesforce CPQ are very different approaches, and each software solution is unique. Look at our comparison table below to better understand the two systems, Salesforce CPQ and CLM.

	CLM	CPQ
Purpose	CLM software is designed to assist with tasks found in Salesforce contract lifecycle management software from end to end. Businesses use CLM software to streamline contract lifecycle processes, reduce contract risks from data-capturing errors, carry out compliance procedures, and improve data visibility in contracts. You can even use CLM for sales	CPQ software focuses on the sales quoting process. With CPQ software, sales agents can quickly configure a business’s products and services with accurate pricing. Then, they can generate custom quotes quickly, even if they have complex sales processes.
Features	Serious CLM software should have the following features: 1. Provide tools to create and author contracts. 2. Empower teams to automate contract approval and renewal workflows. 3. Provide e a repository to store contracts. 4. Supply tools to track and report on compliance. 5. Send reminders regarding important milestones or dates of contracts. 6. Give access to risk management and analysis tools.	Renowned CPQ software should have the following features: 1. Issue tools that assist with configuring products and services on documents. 2. Share tools that help manage pricing and discounts of products and services. 3. Ability to generate quotes and proposals. 4. Integrates with CRM systems, like Salesforce. 4. Present tools that focus on guided selling and upselling techniques. 5. Issue analysis and reporting tools to work with sales data.
Users	Legal, procurement, and contract management teams favor CLM software as the tools effectively manage contracts to ensure legal or regulatory compliance.	Sales teams predominantly use CPQ software as it helps create quotes and proposals to streamline sales processes and increase revenue over time.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Salesforce Contact Lifecycle Management used for?

Many organizations use Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) processes and software for Salesforce contract management at every stage, starting at initiation and ending at expiry or renewal.

What is CPQ and CLM in Salesforce?

In Salesforce, CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote.) is an approach and software to generate accurate quotes in sales processes. On the other hand, a CLM (Contract Lifecycle Management) approach and software focuses on managing contracts to streamline agreement processes within Salesforce.

What does CLM stand for?

CLM stands for Contract Lifecycle Management and refers to the process of digitally managing agreements with partners, vendors, and employees.

CLM vs CRM: What’s the difference?

CRM focuses on managing customer interactions and relationships throughout the entire lifecycle, from initial contact to post-sales support. It helps businesses streamline sales, marketing, and customer service processes to enhance customer satisfaction and retention. On the other hand, CLM is specifically designed to manage the lifecycle of contracts, from creation and negotiation to execution and renewal. It ensures compliance, reduces risks, and optimizes contract performance through features like contract drafting, approval workflows, and analytics.

Does Salesforce have a CLM solution?

Although Salesforce has many features and tools to assist with managing contracts at different stages of the lifecycle, it has yet to have a dedicated or out-of-the-box solution for CLM.

Save with Titan CLM for Higher ROI with Salesforce

Thank you for taking the time to read our article on CLM software and practices in Salesforce. If you want a no-code, affordable platform that integrates 100% with Salesforce, check out Titan CLM.

With Titan CLM, your business can enjoy the benefits of advanced tools that redline, edit, and allow your employees to comment on any contract. You can also track contracts at every step of its lifecycle within Salesforce.

We also offer other core modules to help you streamline any business process you can think of. Join the Titan community and start creating custom docs, forms, apps, e-signatures, and surveys that all integrate seamlessly with Salesforce. Let your entire organization transform how they work with Salesforce data.

For more information, contact us through our social media channels below.

We hope to see you soon!

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Disclaimer: The comparisons listed in this article are based on information provided by the companies online and online reviews from users. If you found a mistake, please contact us.