The legal, security, procurement and budget-release steps a deal must clear after commercial agreement; a leading driver of late-stage slippage.
Also known as:
Procurement process, Contracting process
The Paper Process is the contracting path a deal must clear after both sides agree commercially: legal review, security and data assessments, procurement, vendor set-up and budget release. It is the P added in MEDDPICC, and in modern software it is one of the most common reasons a won deal still slips a quarter.
Surface it early rather than at the end. Document the exact steps, the artefacts each requires and the standard terms; identify likely redlines; and run streams in parallel where you can. A strong champion helps you pre-wire legal and security before the contract arrives.
We do not let a deal reach commit without a visible paper path. "We did not think legal would be a problem" is a forecast killer, so deal inspection asks who owns each step and how long it really takes, well before close.
MEDDPICC has eight elements, and the Paper Process is one of them. See the whole framework, the deal health scorecard and the practical guides on the MEDDPICC hub.
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