Contract intelligence ensures a contract’s intended business outcomes are carried out. From making sales contracts more lucrative to mitigating risks and lowering supply chain costs, it does so in several ways:
However, like any new technology, implementing contract intelligence has a learning curve. This is because AI-powered tools offer complex functionalities.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial intelligence is a hot topic in technology and has been compared to transformative inventions like steam engines, electricity, and the Internet.
Contract management AI helps streamline processes, improve visibility, and provide more effective governance. It can save money by reducing processing times and identifying cost-saving opportunities. It can also help increase consistency, efficiency, and accuracy by removing human error.
However, it is essential to remember that AI can’t do everything and must be governed appropriately. For example, laws are still being crafted to regulate AI, and new technology is expected to make existing laws obsolete quickly. A pragmatic approach to AI adoption will ensure organizations get the most value from this powerful new technology.
Transparency
Contract intelligence platforms offer clear visibility into the mountains of data hidden within contracts, eliminating many pitfalls plaguing in-house legal teams. On-demand data extraction allows leaders to unlock deep insights immediately, freeing up valuable time that would otherwise be spent manually reviewing contracts or searching for information.
With AI-powered contract technology, businesses can automatically sift through contracts and identify any areas of mismatch between regulations or compliance rules and the actual contract language. It enables organizations to address potential issues, mitigate risks, and improve compliance quickly.
Automation
Contract intelligence tools enable the automation of routine tasks and reduce manual intervention, resulting in more rapid response times and greater consistency in performance. The technology can also help identify inefficiencies and potential process reengineering opportunities, which can be implemented across departments.
Essential or task automation automates repetitive, manual processes such as a shared messaging system, allowing teams to redirect their time to more strategic initiatives. It translates into higher-value work, faster processing times, and improved productivity.
Artificial Intelligence-based automation can digitally scan contract documents, pick out keywords, track omissions, and generate advanced analytics that support the contract framing and implementation stages of the contract lifecycle. It enables teams to make better business decisions and achieve higher levels of transparency. The technology can even create self-executing intelligent contracts and self-enforcing based on predefined conditions.
Analytics
Streamline your entire contract lifecycle with AI capabilities, all in one platform. Regulatory changes can be overwhelming, but an AI-powered contract management tool identifies and flags violations before they become issues. It also enables you to build up-to-date contract language to ensure your agreements remain compliant and alerts you when there are exceptions that require human review.
It helps you regain control of your contract portfolio, expedite negotiations, and generate insights. It also saves legal teams and other departments valuable time on manual tasks and frees up resources for higher-value activities. However, this change in culture and process only happens after some time. That’s why it’s best to take a gradual approach when implementing contract intelligence.
Reporting
Like a digital maestro, AI transforms contract management processes. It identifies and extracts critical data that could take hours to search through hundreds of contracts, bringing new insight into the process. It can find dates, dollars, clauses, and other vital data points from your contracts, saving time and improving accuracy versus manual methods.
It can also help you stay on top of upcoming events, negotiate contracts faster, and get visibility into contractual obligations. It can identify crucial terms, automate workflows, and create reminders and calendars by utilizing machine learning, optical character recognition, and legal oversight.
Ultimately, contract intelligence ensures that commercial intent is captured when written, redlined, and signed contracts. With this, sales contracts become more lucrative, sourcing deals drive savings, and supply chain performance becomes optimized.
Arman Ali, respects both business and technology. He enjoys writing about new business and technical developments. He has previously written content for numerous SaaS and IT organizations. He also enjoys reading about emerging technical trends and advances.
