Customizable, Flexible to Meet the Exact Needs of a Small Business

A small business has very different needs than a larger, enterprise business.  Unfortunately, many contract management solutions are designed for larger organizations and force customers to adopt their processes. They don’t understand, nor can they truly address the needs of, a small business, especially a small Federal Government Contractor.

About ORBIS

ORBIS, Inc. is a Veteran-owned Small Business that provides engineering, technical, and consulting services to the Department of Defense and Commercial clients. Its core capabilities include engineering, logistics, IT management, RD&E, and industrial services.

“When I first came to ORBIS, we didn’t have a designated system for managing our contracts,” said Janet Light, Lead Contract Administrator at ORBIS. “I had worked with systems in my other jobs and knew immediately that we needed a system.  We were using Excel, shared folders, and email and it was very tedious and time consuming.”

All of these factors led Light to start investigating contract management solutions.  She looked at four different solutions and ultimately landed on R3’s Contract Management for GovCon.

Customizable and Flexible to Meet Their Exact Needs

One of the primary reasons ORBIS selected R3 was the ability to customize the system to meet their exact contract management needs.

“We were a small business, with a very small contracts team,” said Light. “R3’s solution fits us. It didn’t force us to use the built-in interface or processes. We could customize all of those things to fit what we do….not the other way around. And all those features we weren’t going to use we could simply turn off.  It made it much more manageable and user-friendly for my users.”

According to Light, there was some initial resistance from program managers and others, who were used to the way they were doing things. But through a series of lunch-and-learns, other training opportunities, and some real-life examples, Light was able to get buy-in and support.

“We’ve been able to show our program managers and staff how valuable having a contracts system is,” said Light. “We now brief all of our contracts in the system so all of the program managers have access to real-time, accurate contract data in a brief format. They now see the value and completely trust the system.  It has become our single source of the truth.  We’ve had significantly less billing and program issues since we’ve started using it across all the contracts.”

And she said DCAA’s feedback on the new contract brief format generated from the system has been great.

“I’m now totally confident in any audit,” Light said. “I used to be anxious and spend weeks preparing and worrying, but not anymore.  We have tremendous confidence in the system and can pull contract information in a matter of seconds.”

Among some of the key features, ORBIS relies heavily on document repositories and the ability to quickly create contract briefs. They also see tremendous value in retaining institutional knowledge. For example, if a program manager leaves, all the contract data and information is in the system. It makes it much easier to on-board new program managers and provides a good foundation.

Light also said the system “gives us time back.” Others in the organization can access the system and perform their own tasks or access the documents they need. This frees up Light and her team to focus on other activities. Plus, it has significantly reduced the time required to complete some basic contract management activities, like creating contract briefs.

“The access control and role-based permissions are critical,” said Light. “We have complete trust in the protections and security that are built in.”

ORBIS has been using the system for nearly 3 years and is continuing to add enhancements. For example, it recently added a “buyer side” view so that now all subcontract related documents, data, and information can be added and accessed by the Program team. ORBIS also hopes to leverage more of the workflow in the future and set up processes around deliverables and invoices. The goal is to make it a one-stop shop for all contract-related documents, data, and information.

“When we selected R3, I had a vision for our system,” Light said. “And R3 has helped turn that vision into a reality.  We live and breathe the vision every day.  It’s a daily tool, right up there with timekeeping. It’s just tremendous. The company loves it.”