Fender Musical Instruments Corporation

“Contracts 365 hit the sweet spot for us.  It had the scalability for where we wanted to go in the future, but it also gives us what we need right now, to really get us on good footing.”

Danielle Koehler
Manager of Business and Legal Affairs 
Fender Musical Instruments Corporation

Customer Profile

Founded in 1946, Fender's worldwide guitars, amps, pedals and accessories have been played on more stages than any other company in the industry.  For nearly 80 years, Fender has created innovative musical equipment and revolutionized music and culture as one of the world's leading musical instrument manufacturers, marketers and distributors.  Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC) - whose portfolio of owned and licensed brands includes Fender®, Squier®, Gretsch® guitars, Jackson®, EVH® Charvel®, Bigsby® and PreSonus® - follows a player-centric approach to crafting the highest-quality instruments and digital experiences across genres.  FMIC is dedicated to unlocking the power of musical expression for all players, from beginners to history-making legends. 

Business Challenge

From retail arrangements and licensing to artist agreements and more, Fender executes and renews hundreds of contracts annually with customers and partners around the world.  As new AI-powered contract management tools began to emerge, Fender saw an opportunity to put innovation to work to supercharge their small but powerful legal team. 

"We were looking for a CLM software solution that would scale with us," said Danielle Koehler, Fender's manager of business and legal affairs.  "We wanted to be able to adopt new technology as we grew, at a pace that was right for us."

Fender began a wide-ranging search for a new contract management system that would deliver both greater efficiencies today and greater capabilities over time.  As they reviewed new systems, Fender evaluated vendors not just against functionality and innovation, but also against the relationship and the experience of both the implementation and support teams. 

Solution

Their search led them to Contracts 365.  At the time, Contracts 365 had been working closely with Microsoft to incorporate OpenAI's ChatGPT functionality across its product ecosystem, so the Contracts 365 team knew firsthand how AI was being incorporated into contract management. 

"The Contracts 365 team was great," Danielle continued.  "I appreciated how down-to-earth and transparent they were.  They weren't trying to sell me on AI, which is the hot-button thing right now.  They were looking at our contract management needs holistically."

Results

In Contracts 365, they found everything that they were looking for: robust CLM functionality, a team who not only understood their requirements, but who was genuinely interested in a long-term partnership - and could leverage their strategic investment in Microsoft. 

"Contracts 365 hit the sweet spot for us.  It had the scalability for where we wanted to go in the future, but it also gives us what we need right now, to really get us on good footing." Daniel noted, "Contracts 365 integrated into our existing tech stack, which is great, because trying to throw another software product in the mix is a struggle. Being able to have it within Microsoft - our users will get an email in their Outlook, and it works with Word and SharePoint - it was one of the deciding factors for me."

Looking to the Future

But Contracts 365 also helped futureproof Fender's contracting system.  Danielle went on, "Contracts 365's work with Microsoft means they are tapped into the up-and coming technology, and we know that technology is actually going to be useful for us."

Fender also knew that Contracts 365 was invested in their success.  Danielle noted, "Lots of companies want to work with us because of the Fender name.  But it really seems like Contracts 365 wants to get customers and they understand what it takes to keep them."