Sopima & Microsoft @ ArcticStartup

Online Contract Bank – A Contract Management Software-as-a-Service from the Microsoft Azure Cloud

Sopima takes a different approach to the entire contract management sphere. Sopima service is not an enterprise application that requires an IT project and contract professionals to make it happen. Sopima makes contract management easy and available for all size of companies; from large to small and medium size businesses too. With Sopima, your life with contracts is easier and you get value from day one.

How can you quickly respond to questions about contract terms and conditions? What is the value of your contract base and what are your contractual liabilities? How often do you waste time just searching for a latest version of a certain agreement? How many times you send confidential contract material trough insecure email connection? What would it mean to you if the contract negotiation time spent by  your sales team would be cut by 50% with less risk and more deals? How much money do you spend on lawyers when negotiating and drafting contracts? How do you remember all the important dates and covenants in all your contracts? Is your company in robust Due Diligence shape, contract-wise, and how much time and money would a Due Diligence process cost you? Sopima solves all the above questions and more.

Sopima is a new online service for Contract Creation, Deal Making and Contract Management. The service consists of (1) a smart secure contract bank, (2) online negotiation and signature tools, and (3) contract management best practices.

Sopima makes content of the contracts ‘smart and interactional’. This includes automated reminders on tasks and deadlines. The service ensures collaboration and true business productivity for financial and administrative managers and legal consultants. The value is brought to the customer by shortening the time to negotiate deals, saving time in daily tasks, and enabling transparency with extensive search and reporting on all contract assets. Sopima also takes risk management to a new level with no more expensive lessons in neglected or forgotten commitments.

In short, Sopima makes Contract Lifecycle Management;

• Easy – Ease-of-use is one of the key benefits of Sopima. You learn how to use Sopima in few minutes – guaranteed!
• Comprehensive – Manage the full lifecycle of all your contracts; Contract Bank, Negotiation Tools and Best Practices – directly and easily from the Web!
• Affordable – No upfront investments or long commitment periods – only one clear monthly fee!
• Secure – Sopima is built secure and audited constantly – a true contract bank!
• Fast – Sopima is very fast and easy to deploy throughout your organization. No technical project needed – you get benefits right away!

“Sopima’s mission is to be the most beneficial service for deal making, storing and managing contracts. You could say that Sopima demystifies Contract Management. It can be undertaken professionally yet easily, and is both scalable and affordable! “, says Jaan Apajalahti, the founder and CEO of Sopima.

“It is time for organizations to fix the last business application area that is fuzzy and often without proper processes. After labor-incentive CRM and ERP projects, companies are not willing to start a major project on contract management. With Sopima service this can be done without IT project and large upfront costs”, says Apajalahti.

“Sopima aims for international success. We will make online contract management a natural way of handling all contract related operations”, Apajalahti continues. “We leverage the latest software technology and Cloud Computing platform from Microsoft that scales horizontally to serve large number of customers.”

Sopima was founded in January 2009 by a very experienced and motivated core team. The first set of pilot customers have been signed in June-August and the interest is very high. The full release to market will be in December 2009.

If you wish to discuss with us and hear more, please contact CEO Mr. Jaan Apajalahti (jaan.apajalahti@sopima.com, +358 40 701 3897) or Partner / Communications Ms. Riitta Raesmaa (riitta.raesmaa@sopima.com, +358 40 9033 650), www.sopima.com (in Finnish, later in English).