Contract Management has always been one of the most critical functions that the in-house legal desk handles as one of the many mandates. Right from compliance to execution responsibilities, there are several aspects that have to be carefully looked into. While the legal intellect at work plays an inevitable role, cloud as a platform has brought in a wave of innovative advancement in order to increase the efficacy overall. Lex Witness engages into a coffee table discussion with Monish Darda Co-founder and CTO, ICERTIS, a leading provider of enterprise contract management in the cloud.
Contracts are the foundation of commerce for businesses. They define the terms, rights, obligations and many other details of how the company transacts with customers, suppliers, partners and employees. Historically, these documents have not been well managed. They are hidden on employee laptops, stuck in shared drives or gathering dusk in a file cabinet. Icertis was founded to not only help manage the creation of contracts but also the post-execution administration of contractual obligations and liabilities. We help our customers transform the foundation of commerce to move faster, remain agile, increase compliance and reduce risk.
Contract Lifecycle Management turns contracts into valuable assets that can transform the business in many ways. A strong CLM system can speed up revenue recognition by reducing contract cycle times, improve supply chain agility by onboarding new suppliers quickly, reduce risk by ensuring contractual obligations and commitments are being met and eliminate “maverick” contracting by providing standard clause libraries with fallback options.
CLM in the cloud allows companies to use one platform across the entire enterprise, with the ability to create localized variations in workflow, rules and templates. Being cloud-based also minimizes the amount of custom programming required. On-premise deployments typically are higher cost, require longer lead times and get less frequent software updates.
It’s simple. Icertis solves the hardest contract management problems on the easiest to use platform.
It starts with being a solution that easy to deploy and easy to use, yet flexible enough to adapt to rapidly changing business requirements. While many business applications can take years to deploy, the Icertis Contract Management (ICM) platform can be up and running in weeks. Icertis’ cloud-based platform built on Microsoft Azure reduces deployment time and configurable dashboards allow users to customize based on the unique requirements of their role.
It’s also critical that the system be easy to use. The number one reason business applications fail is that users don’t adopt the system and instead use work arounds. ICM integrates with existing workflows and allows users to manage contracts from within their favorite applications like Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, Dynamics and Saleforce.com. The easy to learn, contextual interface encourages users to follow contracting standards which improves compliance and reduces risk. In addition, step-by-step wizards and selfservice tools allow them to create, edit and approve contracts from any device – laptop, tablet or phone. They can even manage contracts on third party paper with powerful tools like OCR, clause deviation analysis and obligation management.
Finally, Icertis is also engineered for agility and flexibility which allows it to adapt to business changes. Companies can easily create new workflows, rules and fields without custom development.
“We were able to standardize critical clauses, enforcing deviation approvals and resulting in better contract risk management and control,” said Anil K. Patwardhan, CFO, KPIT.
No. With ICM, functionality for managing compliance with local laws is built in. For example, since its inception in 2009, Icertis has run on the Microsoft Azure platform which has data centers in 34 regions around the world, including 3 in India. Companies can choose where their data is housed to comply with local regulation.
The first question our security teams get in the presales phase is, “How secure is Azure?” This is not specific to Azure, it’s really all about “How secure is the cloud?” We give them a link to the Microsoft Azure Trust Center website and after reading the reports and certifications, customers come back reassured and ready to talk business.”
Icertis’ customers demand the highest levels of data encryption, and application and infrastructure security. The enterprise-grade security features built into the Microsoft Azure platform to help provide the level of security customers, and regulators, expect.
Icertis can help the general counsel leverage the power of intelligent analytics to monitor obligations, ensure compliance and mitigate risk. With ICM, legal teams can proactively monitor contractual obligations and deviations. By developing a robust clause and template library, companies can make contract authoring easier while ensuring adherence to contracting standards and approve language. Then they can leverage the system’s intelligent rules engine to automatically assemble and orchestrate the approval process – while improving contract velocity. Post-execution, GCs can automatically create, catalog, assign and track obligations, commitments, expiries and deviations. They can use configurable risk assessment models to assess risk whenever a contract is modified or external data changes. They can automate supplier checks with seamless integration into Dun & Bradstreet, Thomson Reuters or other third-party data.
ICM can help Indian corporates increase business velocity and improve agility. It is already used by some of the country’s leading edge companies including Wipro, Cognizant, Airtel, KPIT, Mindtree, Genpact and Lupin. KPIT, for example, improved contract turnaround time by 40%, resulting in substantial productivity improvements and, most importantly, shortened order-tocash cycles.
Airtel implemented a single contract management platform at corporate headquarters in just a few months and can proactively track and enforce contract SLAs for better operational performance. “The solution’s configurability and rich functionality…will help standardize and automate our contracting process, ensuring greater control, better supply chain agility and improved execution.” Moti Gyamlani, Director of Global SCM, Airtel.
Icertis, the leading provider of enterprise contract management in the cloud, solves the hardest contract management problems on the easiest to use platform. The Icertis Contract Management (ICM) platform is used by 750,000+ users at companies like 3M, Daimler and Microsoft to manage 2.5+ million contracts in 40+ languages across 90+ countries. To learn more, contact us at +91-6608-8400 or [email protected]
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