Artificial intelligence is one of the most popular and often overused buzz words in the tech world today. But when it comes to contract management, it’s more than just a buzz word. It’s the next level of sophistication in technology that is all set to transform contract management as we know it. It is what is going to enable businesses to attain unprecedented levels of speed while simultaneously being in full control of their contracts.
In this blog post, let’s take a detailed tour of how Artificial Intelligence is reimagining contract management by turning it from static, historic documents to intelligent, dynamic tools with a life of their own:
Speeding up the contract lifecycle with AI
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Reducing intake to best first draft time
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) enables new request intake through a variety of everyday platforms like Outlook, Salesforce, internal CLM portal, etc. This ensures quick contract request from a preferred platform and saves time in having to log in to a separate platform to initiate a new request. Moreover, the request can be generated in a matter of minutes by merely populating simple guided forms. These forms then auto-populate a pre-approved template which is then shared with the right stakeholder for approval. This reduces the time taken to generate requests and produce the best first draft from weeks to as little as a couple of days or a few hours.
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Reducing review and negotiation time
An advanced, AI enabled CLM enables easy viewing of all contracts under review in a single customized dashboard. It helps save time by providing real-time updates and reminders to right stakeholders and facilitates on-the-go review and negotiation through mobile app.
Moreover, Robotic Process Automation enables configuring of workflows which save time by auto-routing documents to the right stakeholders and alerting them through triggers and notifications. These transparent workflows make for better visibility into who the document lies with at any point of the process and increase accountability. Automated version management ensures no time is lost in looking for the right version of document or accidentally working on an older version.
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Reducing time taken during internal and external audit
All legal and contract management professionals dread internal and external audits due to the time they consume and the high stakes they carry. Audits take a lot of time and effort due to the requirement of accurate documentation and audit trail. With digitized, automated contract management solutions, an accurate audit trail is automatically maintained. These solutions track and save every version of the contract documents during authoring, review, negotiations and sign-off phase. This ensures a transparent, accurate and extensive audit trail which in turn quickens the audit process and saves time as well as money.
Complete control of contract lifecycle with AI
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Optimizing contracts on third party paper
Robotic Artificial Intelligence parses external party paper into different sections and clauses. It rapidly finds, highlights and parses Terms, Clauses and Sections from Third Party. This ensures complete control for contract management teams as they easily navigate through all sections and clauses and compare them to the pre-configured templates and clauses. This saves time and increases compliance and efficiency throughout all contracts.
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An extensive view of all contracts
An extensive view all contracts at a centralized, cloud-based location guarantees thorough examination of all contracts needing attention and reduces risks of missing any obligations, deadlines or compliance. This provides contract management professionals with full control of their organization’s contracts real-time and on the go.
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Pre-configured templates for easy and uniform contract drafting
With AI enabled CLM, contract templates can be pre-configured and pre-approved to ensure standard contract language and quick and hassle-free reviews. AI backed wizards can guide users to the right templates, terms and clauses as demanded by a particular contract. This enables legal and contract professionals to be in control of contracts and avoid manual errors and omissions.
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Increasing pre-award compliance
Smart clauses libraries make contract drafting easy, accurate, and risk proof by suggesting hints and best alternatives (with minimum risk) for every clause and alerting in case of omission of any required clause. Advanced analytics studies and analyses risks and creates a risk profile highlighting risks present across contracts in terms of contract language, chosen vendor, clauses, regulations, etc. This empowers contract teams to avoid and resolve any complications immediately and allows them to stay in control of all contracts.
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Monitor post-award compliance
Contract Management does not stop once a contract is signed. That’s when the actual performance monitoring and progress tracking begins. A digitized, AI enabled CLM system allows automatic configuring, tracking and managing necessary milestones and metrics post-award. With any discrepancy in the pre-configured metrics, alerts and triggers are sent to all the right stakeholders. This ensures timely remediation of any inefficiencies in the contracts and ensures full compliance to contract performance, regulations, and commercials.
From the above examples, we can confirm how Artificial Intelligence is crucial in attaining simultaneous speed and control in Contract Management. Looking at the pace of progress that AI is making in every aspect of technology, it is safe to say that AI has currently just scraped the tip of the CLM iceberg and that there are a lot more advancements in store for every stage of contract lifecycle management. Join Zycus at CLOC Vegas Institute to experience speed and control with our AI powered CLM.
