Category: Contract Lifecycle Management

Meet the New Onit User Interface: A Quicker Way to Tackle Automation and Workflow for Corporate Legal

Posted on April 29, 2021 by - Company News and Events, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

The technology demands for most corporate legal departments have become increasingly more complex in the past decade – especially for automation and workflow. With corporate legal prioritizing efficiency, cost control and collaboration across the enterprise, technology must be flexible enough to meet ever-evolving needs and easy enough to use to encourage widespread adoption.

Onit understands, which is why we’re excited to announce our new user interface. The enhanced design allows corporate legal professionals, Onit App builders and business collaborators in departments such as compliance, sales and IT to create, collaborate and get more done in fewer clicks.

The new UI provides a cleaner visual language, enhanced indicators and status effects and a more straightforward way to identify and act on pertinent data and deadlines. Powered by Onit’s no-code platforms for workflow automation (Apptitude) and AI-based business intelligence (Precedent), the even more intuitive experience maximizes productivity for enterprise legal management, contract lifecycle management, legal service requests, legal holds and more.

No Automation and Workflow Challenge Too Big or Too Small to Solve with Onit

Our new UI joins a variety of Onit innovations that make it simpler to streamline and automate critical processes. Thanks to our no-code platforms and intuitive UIs, legal operations professionals and in-house counsel can create time-saving, automated Apps that simplify automation and workflow.

Our Process Builder provides a visually oriented, drag-and-drop interface that allows users of all levels of technical proficiency to build workflows. It removes learning hurdles by making it easy for users to understand how to build applications, allowing corporate legal to create Apps in minutes.

To see this in motion, check out our Hack the House competition.  Corporate legal professionals from companies including Colgate-Palmolive, Corteva Agriscience and McDonald’s identified business needs for areas such as diversity, IP and HR and created Apps and solutions to meet them in three weeks. In the end, Team IP won by creating Apps and a solution that automated the trademark renewal process.

Onit’s AI also provides a valuable edge for automation and workflow. ReviewAI uses artificial intelligence to quickly review, redline and edit all types of contracts, increasing productivity by more than 51%. ExtractAI leverages AI-based software to extract and obtain usable data from executed, legacy and third-party paper contracts.

To learn more about Onit, our new UI and our platforms and products, reach out to [email protected] or schedule a demonstration.

With the Rising Use of AI In Legal Services, What Should In-House Counsel Look For?

Posted on April 28, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

The increased use of AI in legal services is indisputable. Analysts predict that corporate legal departments will see technology budget increases as significant as three times by 2025 and an ongoing push to automate legal work for productivity. With its ability to bring immediate results out-of-the-box and learn and improve over time, AI offers the ideal technological solution to boost efficiency and save time for high-performing legal departments. In fact, this study found that AI for contract review can increase productivity by 51.5%.

However, not everything that claims to be AI these days is actually AI, and not all AI solutions are created equal. AI can significantly boost efficiency, streamline workflows, and save costs – if you invest in the right AI solutions.

Given the tremendous benefits of AI technologies, it’s helpful to understand the features that set the best AI tools apart from the competition. When you’re looking to purchase AI solutions and transform your legal department, you should consider whether they offer the following characteristics and features.

Time to Value

When you invest in new technology like AI, you want to start reaping the benefits as soon as possible. Therefore, when looking at AI options, you want to find solutions that allow you to quickly begin realizing value after you implement them.

Several factors can decrease the amount of time it takes to realize value from an AI solution. The software should be quick and easy to implement and roll out across all your users. Your AI should also ideally be pre-trained, meaning it’s ready to go straight out of the box, rather than requiring additional time to train it. The faster your users can capitalize on all the benefits of your AI solution, the faster it will translate into value for your organization.

Pricing Structure

Technology vendors take a wide range of approaches to pricing their products, and how they price them can significantly impact their value and usability for your enterprise. As the use of AI in legal services increases, the last thing you want to do is agree to a pricing structure based on the number of users.

When the price of your AI solution is not based on user numbers, you have the option of using the technology to work across all business units in your organization without having to worry about incurring extra costs when additional collaboration would be valuable. The ideal solution will have no limit on the number of users who can interact with the system for the initial price of your investment.

User Experience

Like any technology, AI is only valuable if your users can use it effectively. Any solution you choose should be easy to understand and execute without excessive training or a steep learning curve. Look into whether the product you’re considering has a proven implementation department.

The right tools will also have a good track record in the customer satisfaction department. It’s worthwhile to look into the vendor or product’s Net Promoter Score (NPS). An NPS is based on customers’ ratings of their likelihood of recommending a company, product, or service on a scale of 0 to 10 – so the higher the NPS, the better.

Underlying Platform

Any AI solution you purchase will have to operate on some underlying platform to function. At a minimum, that platform should be a trusted product that has the capacity necessary to meet all your needs and the ability to scale as those needs change.

Even better is not having to rely on external platforms for your chosen AI solution to work. The ideal tools will run on a reliable platform supplied and maintained by the same vendor as the AI solutions themselves. This will allow you to deploy products and updates quickly. Also, look for no-code platforms that will enable you to build your own apps with little or no technical experience.

Immediate Usability

A solution is only helpful if your users actually use it. It’s also most helpful if they can start using it right away. Long implementation delays or the need to invest significant time in learning to use a product can outweigh the benefits that product might eventually offer.

You should look for out-of-the-box products that require minimal configuration before they can be used in order to get the full use of AI in legal services. Such products are ready to go almost immediately, meaning you can quickly start using them to address the problems that drove you to seek out AI in the first place. At the same time, however, they can also be customized to meet the most simple or customized workflows within your organization.

Partner Network

While the vendor of your chosen AI solution certainly matters, so do your vendor’s partnerships. You want a technology provider that partners with other top-notch providers and professionals who can address your needs outside of those related to the specific AI technology you’re buying.

You want your AI product vendor to have alliances with experienced implementation service providers to ensure that your chosen solution succeeds across your entire enterprise. Beyond implementation, your provider should also be part of a robust ecosystem of partners who can address your needs as they arise, from the most routine business needs to the most novel demands that might arise. Having the right partnerships also means that your vendor can leverage those partnerships to design the most optimal solutions to address a particular problem.

The Use of AI in Legal Services – Investing in the Right AI

The excitement about AI is understandable – today’s technologies can accomplish tasks that seemed impossible even just a few years ago. Wanting to incorporate those advancements into your organization to improve the ways you do business is a great impulse.

You need to be sure, however, that you’re getting products that are effective and not just hype. Even more importantly, they must be tailored to your organization’s needs if you want to see actual benefits from them. Not every AI solution is suitable for every organization, and not every AI provider will give you the support you need for your products to succeed.

By considering the factors outlined above before you purchase any solution, you’ll put your organization on the right path to genuinely benefiting from AI. It’s worth the time to do your research and think before you buy.

Legal Industry News: Current News and Trends in Legal Operations, March 2021

Posted on March 31, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Welcome to our March industry run-down, where we share with you some of the most pertinent and timely articles on legal industry news. We hope this roundup of legal industry trends provides some useful takeaways.

In today’s lineup, we share insights about how Lenovo uses AI and automation for contract management, legal technology trends from Gartner and how leaning into communications and leadership traits exhibited by women can enhance collaboration between lawyers and clients.

#1

 An AI Checklist for Every Phase of Contract Lifecycle Management

Contracts are the main source of risk and obligations for corporate legal teams, and if not managed properly, they can lead to a whole host of complications and business failures. The right contract lifecycle management (CLM) tool allows you to modernize the way you deliver legal services, automating and standardizing processes to create a single point of truth for all your contracts.

Nick Whitehouse, general manager of Onit’s AI Center of Excellence, tackles the latest in legal industry news by sharing a checklist for contract AI, covering all phases of CLM. The article includes considerations for both the pre-signature and post-signature contract management phases, including topics like the importance of pre-trained AI, how a CLM solution can turn contract data into actionable intelligence and the overall benefits of contract AI.

(Source: Lexology)

#2

Are You AI-Certified? According to Experts, You Might Want to Look Into that.

While AI solutions are often touted as the solution to human error and bias, the data underlying those tools can contain just as many biases. Problematic data means problematic results, and even potential liability.

One current initiative is trying to change all that by empowering attorneys to give their clients reliable and substantive advice about the AI tools they’re considering using. The University of Toronto’s Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society has partnered with AI Global, a nonprofit focusing on advancing responsible and ethical AI, to create a certification project for lawyers looking to help their firms implement AI tools or advise their clients about AI. The goal of the new program is to create an international framework of AI across a number of industries that is fair, ethical, and responsible, eliminating bias and privacy breaches.

(Source: ABA Journal)

#3

Five In-House Legal Tech Trends from Gartner

In recent years, automation and other technologies have emerged as the obvious solution for beleaguered legal departments that are under constant pressure to cut costs and boost efficiency. While the legal industry has historically been resistant to technology, things have slowly been changing. When the pandemic hit, legal departments shifted gears. As a result, they’ve been able to discover the many benefits of incorporating and embracing technology to achieve business outcomes.

The trend toward widespread technology adoption is only expected to continue. Gartner recently predicted five trends we should expect to see in legal tech in the coming years:

  • By 2024, 20% of generalist lawyers in corporate legal departments will be replaced by nonlawyer staff
  • By 2024, 50% of corporate legal departments’ work related to major corporate transactions will be automated
  • By 2025, corporate legal departments will triple their spending on legal technology
  • By 2025, at least 25% of corporate legal application spending will be on nonspecialist technology providers.
  • By 2025, corporate legal departments will have only captured 30% of the potential benefits of their CLM solutions

 (Source: Gartner)

#4

Look to Women to Advance Success and Collaboration in the Legal Industry

In honor of Women’s History Month, the Women’s Network of the Legal Value Network’s shined the spotlight on what makes women leaders successful and how adopting feminine leadership and communication styles can benefit law firms by advancing collaboration between lawyers and clients.

Female leadership has really risen to the occasion in the face of the pandemic’s challenges, largely because traditionally female leadership qualities – compassion, humility, and collaboration – have been what companies have needed to thrive despite uncertainty. “The qualities that make women great leaders through times of crisis are also what make them great leaders every day,” says Shelley Zalis, CEO of The Female Quotient and founder of The Equality Lounge.

(Source: Legal Value Network)

#5

The Future of Contracting: CLM Automation + AI Transformation at Lenovo

Every legal department can benefit from more efficient processes. Technology is the key to making that possible. The World Commerce and Contracting Association recently held a webinar that looked at the Lenovo legal department transformation journey, highlighting how Lenovo successfully built a strategy for an effective global rollout of contract lifecycle management technology that relied heavily on AI.

Key themes of the webinar included:

  • Lenovo’s CLM evolution and transformation roadmap
  • Multi-year goals related to their contract management technology
  • Why the culture must eat change management for breakfast
  • The benefits and ROI of a single CLM platform

You can watch the entire webinar to learn how AI is driving the future here.

(Source: World Commerce and Contracting Association)

Bonus Resource: Lean Into LegalOps

Get the inside track on corporate legal and operations trends, the very best events and helpful content from the legal community by joining Lean Into LegalOps today. The online forum lets Onit customers and other members of the legal community share and learn from one another with webinars, debates, weekly catch-up calls and more.

Ten Things to Look For When Choosing a Legal Platform

Posted on March 23, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Legal platform technologies have proven invaluable for helping corporate legal departments adroitly navigate the ups and downs of the past year. Thanks to the flexibility, customization, unlimited scalability and limitless building opportunities they offer, no-code platforms have provided legal departments with the tools they need to innovate and adapt to meet change after change.

Perhaps you’ve already decided that a platform approach is right for your legal department. How do you know how to pick the right one?

What to Look for When Buying a Legal Platform

Here are ten things to consider when choosing a legal platform to meet the unique needs of your corporate legal department.

  1. Enterprise-wide solution development

The ideal online platform will give you the ability to create all the solutions you need for day-to-day operations, both within your legal department and in any department across the organization, allowing for cross-collaboration between all departments.

  1. Agile project management

The right platform will be able to adjust and evolve as your department’s and organization’s needs change. When considering a platform, make sure it continually releases updates, so you know you’re always incorporating the most up-to-date security standards and user feedback in the solutions you create.

  1. No-code technology

You shouldn’t have to be a technology or coding expert to reap the benefits of an online platform. Many platforms today are no-code, bridging the gap between business and technical users. This makes it simple for anyone in the legal department to build new workflows, even if they have little or no technical training.

  1. Quick realization of value

With any business change or new technology, the faster it can start creating value, the better. A legal platform that allows you to quickly build solutions from day one lets you start realizing value for your organization almost immediately.

  1. AI and automation

The platform you choose should ideally incorporate the power of automation and artificial intelligence to eliminate time-consuming and costly manual legal processes. You’ll also benefit from continuous learning, which automatically examines and adjusts business process rules and workflows over time, even predicting necessary changes before they arise.

  1. Third-party integration tools

While it’s critical that you’re able to build whatever solutions you need on your platform, it’s equally important that those solutions are able to connect to the other tools you use every day. The ideal platform will include a third-party integration tool that seamlessly moves data between all your systems and acts as a centralized hub for your operations.

  1. Robust business intelligence tools and analytics

Today’s legal departments are sitting on more data than ever before. It’s time to make that data useful. Your platform should integrate robust business intelligence tools and analytics capabilities that empower you to leverage your data to make valuable, informed business and legal decisions that will benefit the entire organization.

  1. A responsive user interface

For a long time, technology struggled to find a way to be suitable for viewing on all devices. Instead, what you saw varied depending on your screen size or resolution. Enter responsive user interfaces, which adjust your content according to the device that’s being used, so your users can always view the content as you intended it to be viewed.

  1. An adaptive end-user experience

Adaptive platforms offer multiple layouts in order to provide the best possible experience for your end users. An adaptive platform will detect where your user is accessing it and automatically provide the most appropriate layout for that user’s situation, role, or activity.

  1. Best-in-class partner programs

The best technology providers should be partnered with the best talent, resources, and experience in the industry. Your platform provider should give you access to a top-notch partner network where you can get whatever help you need with technology, implementation, or services in order to maximize your investment.

Onit’s legal platforms, business process automation platform Apptitude and AI-based business intelligence platform Precedent, help corporate legal departments adapt and innovate to meet whatever challenges arise. Contact us today to learn more about how a platform approach can benefit your corporate legal department.

For fmore information on how to choose the right platforms to benefit your corporate legal department, consider these resources:

An AI Checklist for All Stages of Contract Lifecycle Management

Posted on March 18, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Contract Lifecycle Management

Since contracts are the primary source of risk and obligations that corporate legal teams need to manage, all stages of contract lifecycle management should be managed properly. Failure to do so can lead to complications such as failure to enforce negotiated supplier terms, regulatory breaches, inadequate delivery to customers, time lost, revenue leakage and inflated costs.

Many legal departments are struggling to find effective solutions for handling contracts for all stages of contract lifecycle management, with 71% of in-house lawyers reporting that they are stuck doing manual work which should be automated. Another 86% say that they need to modernize the way they deliver legal services. The industry is seeing legal departments making moves to adopt comprehensive contract lifecycle management (CLM) solutions to standardize processes and obtain a single source of truth for all their contracts.

However, not all CLM technologies are created equal. Many require time-consuming manual entry and maintenance, putting further burden on already stretched teams. AI-powered CLM systems abstract away much of this manual work, giving corporate legal departments the ability to control their contracts from start to finish and free up lawyers to focus on higher-level tasks that will help grow the business.

But what exactly should the combination of AI and CLM look like? It should intelligently augment, assist and automate manual activities throughout the entire contract lifecycle, improve consistency, save time and surface insights that allow the legal team to become much more proactive.

As legal teams incorporate this new technology, there are several functions they should expect when it comes to pre-signature contract management and post-signature contract management.

AI for the Pre-Signature Contract Management Stage

Pre-Trained

AI contract management solutions should come pre-trained, meaning you aren’t doing the “heavy-lifting” on the implementation side. To learn a task, AI often needs large data sets to analyze, which is a highly specialized and technical process. Modern legal AI providers should handle this training, giving lawyers out-of-the-box functionality to use it within days – not weeks or months.

The real value of AI is that it is always learning and improving. Pre-training will have it ready to use quickly, giving you a faster return on your investment. As you use it more, it should identify and enforce preferences unique to your corporate legal department. This pre-learning also gives the legal team the space needed to improve the overall CLM process.

First-Pass Review

For the pre-signature contract management stage, AI should function as a human lawyer for the first-pass review. It should scour Microsoft Word or PDF contracts like NDAs, MSAs and purchase agreements, flag key contract issues, apply contract review templates, suggest edits and provide an overall risk profile.

The AI should also work where your people work, ensuring that the intelligence you’ve invested in slots into your existing processes, be it from email, Microsoft Word, Web portals or third-party systems. This ultimately maximizes the benefits and impact of AI.

Self-Service

AI should also enable self-service for non-legal business professionals during this stage. For example, business users should get an AI-assisted contract review in minutes through email or a self-service portal. The AI runs the contracts by the company’s playbook, helping to enforce corporate standards.

AI for the Post-Signature Contract Management Stage

The contract process doesn’t end once you’ve signed. Contracts offer a wealth of usable data that you can, and indeed should, harness to save time, reduce risk and make more informed business decisions. Proper management of contracts in this stage also ensures that the terms of the agreement are fulfilled and helps to assess if the company is meeting expected business results. For most teams, this work is currently done manually or not done at all.

When added to contract lifecycle management after execution, AI dramatically increases the efficiency and scope of data extraction. It quickly and securely extracts valuable, high-quality data from all the contracts in your CLM system and turns it into actionable information in several ways, including:

  • Batch review, by extracting data from multiple legal documents at once
  • Repapering, by amending or redlining contract details and critical terms to comply with regulatory changes or M&A activities
  • Contract abstraction, by identifying critical legal clauses, terms and details in documents for easy analysis and syncing with your CLM.
  • Audit compliance by automating large-scale legal contract review when regulatory changes occur and exporting relevant details in notes and reports
  • Due diligence through the automation of batch review of contracts for routine legal due diligence, freeing up resources
  • Legacy contract migration by rapidly analyzing and extracting legacy contract metadata, including critical dates, terms, and clauses, to assist in importing

AI tools empower you to simplify contract data extraction and get your hands on the valuable intelligence you need to make the best-informed decisions for your company.

How quickly does it accomplish this?

Imagine the highly manual process of data extraction from contracts. Now, imagine AI technology that can review thousands of contracts at once, view hundreds of contract data points and export relevant data in seconds.

The Benefits of Contract AI

Using AI in all stages of contract lifecycle management provides sizeable benefits. For example, legal professionals reported in this study that AI increased productivity by more than 51.5% and led to cost reductions of 33% related to contract processing. During the post-signature contract management stage, you should be looking to reduce manual entry in CLM by upwards of 80%.

The legal profession is continually evolving, getting faster and more complex as demand increases and resources decrease. AI can help you meet those demands without adding resources – especially when it comes to contract lifecycle management.

The Future of Contracting: CLM + AI Transformation at Lenovo

If you’d like to learn more about AI for CLM, access the replay of “The Future of Contracting: CLM + AI Transformation at Lenovo.” Legal operations executives from Lenovo shared their strategy for a global rollout of contract lifecycle management technology and why artificial intelligence is considered a key part of the services delivery model of the future.

How Contract Automation Tools with Legal AI Reduce Processing Time by 60-70%

Posted on March 10, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

By some estimates, contract processing time can take up to 70% or more of an in-house counsel’s work hours. The often manual and collaborative process – if not properly managed – can lead to complications such as failure to enforce negotiated supplier terms, regulatory breaches, inadequate delivery to customers, revenue leakage and more if not properly managed.

That’s where Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) comes in. Contract automation tools with legal AI can streamline all phases of the contract lifecycle from capture and creation, through negotiations and approvals, to execution and post-execution management, often resulting in an average of 9% average cost savings and reducing the average sales cycle by 24%. It also offers a single source of truth for all contracts, whether buy-side, sell-side or corporate contracts.

Now, Onit is pleased to announce that contract processing times are shrinking even more, thanks to our enhanced integration between Contract Lifecycle Management and ReviewAI, which uses legal AI on legal contracts to review and redline documents in two minutes or less. The integration combines the power of contract automation and AI-based contract management into one tool that accelerates contracts at management phases. Plus, it ensures that corporate legal departments have everything in one CLM workflow.

Legal AI for Contract Automation and Lifecycle Management

With the newly enhanced, seamless integration, business users can submit contracts to corporate legal via an online intake form. ReviewAI handles the first-pass review, noting recommendations and offering a contract risk assessment – freeing corporate counsel from a highly manual process. In fact, when paired with Onit Contract Lifecycle Management, legal AI from Review AI increases productivity by 50% or more.

Onit’s Ongoing Commitment to AI

The robust integration of Onit CLM and ReviewAI is one of many AI product innovations. In November, we launched our AI Center of Excellence, the AI-powered business intelligence platform Precedent and ReviewAI. In May, we’ll release InvoiceAI, an AI-assisted invoice review for legal spend and enterprise legal management. Between now and then, you can also expect more AI and product announcements.

Reduce Contract Processing Time Now. Here’s How.

Deploy contract automation tools and leverage the power of legal AI to improve your contract lifecycle management. Free up legal counsel from a manual, time-intensive legal contract management process. Find out how you can use automated contract analysis tools and risk assessments with legal AI contract automation tools.

To learn more about contract lifecycle management, ReviewAI and Precedent, reach out to your account manager or schedule a demonstration here.

 

Will AI Replace Lawyers & Other Myths: Legal AI Mythbusters

Posted on March 5, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

AI is a hot buzzword right now, but with buzz always comes a whole host of misconceptions about a technology’s capabilities. There’s considerable confusion about what artificial intelligence can do and widespread misinformation about how it works, particularly in the area of managing legal contracts and if AI will replace lawyers.

Onit recently hosted a webinar to debunk these common myths. Nick Whitehouse, General Manager of Onit’s AI Center of Excellence, and Jean Yang, Vice President of Onit’s AI Center of Excellence, dispelled common misconceptions about everything from will AI replace lawyers to who can benefit from AI.

The goal is to help legal professionals decipher marketing-speak to determine what’s genuinely AI and what’s just software.

Here’s an overview of some of the common legal AI myths Nick and Jean debunked.

Myth 1: Will AI replace lawyers? No.

Lawyers being replaced by AI is the classic fear and, fortunately, it’s unfounded. Rather than replacing lawyers, AI will automate certain aspects of lawyers’ jobs, typically the most routine ones. As a result, lawyers will have more time to focus on other tasks and accomplishments. This means that lawyers’ jobs will continue to evolve and change as more AI capabilities are introduced, but those jobs will never be eliminated.

That’s not to say that lawyers should ignore legal AI. Yes, AI won’t replace them. However, lawyers using legal AI will replace those that don’t, thanks to increased productivity and efficiency provided by the transformative technology.

Myth 2: Is AI hard to implement? No.

AI learns, but to accomplish that it needs training. Typically, that is a monumental task that requires large pools of data, time and specialized technical skills.

The industry has matured now. Much of that work is done in advance by the vendor, meaning the technology is largely ready to implement and use right out of the box. For example, this AI for contract review comes loaded with a library of legal knowledge and can be up and running in a matter of days.

Myth 3: AI and machine learning can be used interchangeably. No.

Many people use the terms AI and machine learning interchangeably, but that’s not entirely accurate. AI is a technology that enables computers to learn and mimic human intelligence and it covers a wide range of techniques. Among those techniques are machine learning, natural language processing and more. The terms are used interchangeably, even though that’s incorrect, because machine learning is one of the AI techniques that we encounter most often in our day-to-day lives. Machine learning is integral to AI tools that make automated legal contract review possible.

Myth 4: AI is only for large legal departments. Not True.

While there may have been some barriers to entry in the early days of AI, we’re now at a point where AI solutions can be affordable for everyone – especially if your AI provider offers solutions capable of scaling to meet your needs for the size of your organization. The right AI solution will work just as well for the smallest legal department as it will for the largest global corporation.

Myth 5: AI will require too much training. No, AI will create less work, not more.

Many people worry that implementing AI will create more work for their department because they’ll frequently have to fix the technology or invest too much time learning how to use it.

Thankfully, we haven’t seen those fears play out.

Studies show that, on average, users are 51% more productive when they use AI for contract review. The more experienced they become with AI, the more their productivity improves. Additionally, as AI has become more mainstream, AI solutions require far less training, need far fewer corrections, and are much easier to use without extensive training.

But Wait – There are More Legal AI Myths to Expose

These are just some of the AI misunderstandings we dispel in the webinar. Our panel also talks about crucial issues like data security, retaining control over reviews and negotiations, why pre-built AI solutions are less effective, and why every team can benefit from AI. You can listen to the entire webinar here.

Contract Management in Procurement is Fueling Transformation and Streamlining Processes

Posted on February 23, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

At its core, contract management for procurement enables a team to manage spend against budget and automate the contracting process. We’ve previously explored how technologies like contract lifecycle management (CLM) and contract AI increase efficiency and reduce risk for general counsel, legal operations and sales operations. Now, we’ll examine the power of contract management for procurement and how it increases visibility and cuts time through automation.

Procurement is a critical role in any organization. As Chief Procurement Officer at a global enterprise, you’re ultimately responsible for all procurement transformation efforts around the world, and you’re expected to lead those efforts efficiently and effectively. In doing so, you enable spend owners, such as business units and functional partners, to maximize the value they receive from suppliers to meet their objectives.

Technology is integral to effective and efficient procurement in the modern era. Because contracts are such a key part of procurement activities, having the right contract management (CLM) tool for procurement can make all the difference.

CLM and Contract AI in Procurement

A Chief Procurement Officer is responsible for accomplishing some of the organization’s most critical business goals, including ensuring that the company has ongoing value creation via a world-class supply base, developing the company’s overall procurement strategy and identifying and realizing cost-saving and cost reduction opportunities for the enterprise. There’s also the need to manage budgets and an overall expectation for procurement transformation to create a center of excellence resulting in lasting value for the organization.

In addition to these crucial overarching functions, Chief Procurement Officers must also control and manage the inner workings of the procurement department, including its employees and the systems they use. They must manage procurement staff in and across sourcing, contracting, transactional purchasing, supplier management, and miscellaneous internal procurement support activities, while also managing the skills and competency development of that staff, including training development and knowledge management capabilities.

As a foundation for all of these important roles and expectations, the Chief Procurement Officer is responsible for the selection and management of procurement systems. This can, and indeed should, include incorporating the technologies necessary to build the procurement center of excellence the organization expects and needs. Because contract management for procurement, along with contract AI, is imperative, having the right CLM tool for procurement will boost effectiveness and efficiency across all those activities, increasing excellence and bringing value to the enterprise as a whole.

Benefits for Procurement

In selecting a CLM tool to transform your procurement operations, keep in mind the importance of understanding the needs of different stakeholders who will be impacted by any new system. Consider the benefits of contract management for various different roles within your procurement staff, and balance their needs to get the most out of your system. At its core, your CLM solution for procurement must be flexible enough to meet a variety of needs and be easily applied across all the different tasks that make up the procurement function.

Because contract management for procurement is so foundational, your CLM solution needs to serve as a centralized tool for managing procurement contracts across the organization, regardless of where around the globe they originate – think of your CLM solution as a single point of truth for your procurement activities across the enterprise.

Being able to centrally manage contracts will help you handle some of your most critical Chief Procurement Officer tasks, including improving business outcomes, decreasing risk and managing spend against budget. With a CLM solution, you’ll always be able to know exactly where every procurement contract is and see the status of current contract negotiations. If someone is causing delays, you’ll know who it is and how you can help move them forward. CLM tools can also automate routine contracts like NDAs, bringing even more efficiency to the procurement function and shifting your focus to tasks that create more value for your organization.

When you’re the head of procurement at an organization responsible for high levels of spend, you understand the importance of contract management in procurement to deliver savings and value. You need the right CLM tool for procurement to make the most of those contracts and support the critical activities of your enterprise.

Onit’s CLMs solution provides the flexibility and efficiency your procurement function needs to become a center of excellence for your enterprise. Contact us today to learn more.

February Digest: The Latest in Legal Operations Trends and News

Posted on February 17, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Welcome to our February run-down of the latest in legal operations trends and news. In this digest, we dig into the results from the Association of Corporate Counsel’s 2021 Chief Legal Officers survey and how ADM controls legal spend. Experts will share real-life numbers that illustrate contract AI benefits and a new approach to legal operations maturity models. Finally, we’ll talk about CLOC and its strategy for expanding membership.

#1

Contract Management Tops General Counsel Wish Lists, According to Survey

 According to the 2021 Chief Legal Officers survey conducted by the Association of Corporate Counsel, corporate legal departments are pursuing more hiring as privacy and compliance challenges increase. More than 30% plan to add in-house lawyers and nearly half said they will send more work to outside counsel this year and increase headcount for corporate legal.

Artificial Lawyer analyzed the results as well, focusing on the types of legal technology GCs and CLOs want in the next two years. Taking first place: Contract management, with 67%. With contract AI accelerating contract approvals by up to 70%, it isn’t hard to understand why this is a priority corporate legal top brass.

The ACC survey includes feedback from 947 participants in 44 countries.

(sources: Corporate Counsel and Artificial Lawyer)

#2

ADM Legal Chief Redesigned Law Firm Relationships and Cut Spend. Here’s How.

In legal operations news regarding outside counsel spend, Cam Findlay, Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary at Archer Daniels Midland, shares how his team significantly reduced legal spend. The company dropped its legal spend from 85% to 50% of its budget. How? The department relied on technology, best practices and a law firm panel.

As he explains to Bloomberg Law:

“One of the first things we did was get better technology. We put in place a matter management system that allows us to track every penny—well, we think we track every penny—of spending by an outside law firm. We can even track the diversity of the lawyers who are working for us, how many hours were done by women or people of color.

“We use Onit, and we were one of the first major companies to use it, I believe. It’s a very good system because it’s beyond just matter management and e-billing, and we use it for all sorts of purposes throughout the company. It’s a good platform that you can plug and play other aspects onto.”

He also discusses how the law firm panel – called the ADM Law Firm Alliance – helped drive them to their global spending goals:

“We sit down with our top firms early in the year, every year, and through our Onit system, we’re able to prepare a firm report card for them that shows how their rates compare to other law firms, how their staffing compares, in terms of whether they are partner heavy or associate heavy. It also shows how they’re doing in terms of the diversity of the team that they’re putting on our matters. That’s been a really effective tool. We can sit down with a firm and say, ‘Your team was 100% white male. Your competitors here have been able to put much more diverse teams on our matters. That’s something we want you to work on for next year.’”

(source: Bloomberg Law)

#3

How Effective is Contract AI for Legal? Here Are the Numbers.

A panel of experts from Adobe and Onit gathered at Legalweek(year) tackled the latest legal operations trends by discussing contract AI and its impact on corporate legal. Instead of general benefits, though, these presenters provided quantitative numbers showing how effective this technology is.

A recent study of contract AI found that:

  • New AI users become 34% more efficient with their time and 51.5% more productive
  • Contracts are reviewed and redlined in less than two minutes
  • The technology helps corporate legal reduce contract processing costs by 33%
  • Users can shift work to higher-value activities, with one senior lawyer reallocating 15% of his time from contract work and team management to more strategic endeavors.

To hear the panel discussion, visit here.

(source: Legalweek[year])

#4

A New Approach to Legal Operations Maturity Models

According to the 2020 State of the Industry survey by the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC), there has been a steady growth trajectory in legal operations across organizations of all sizes. The outcome has been an increase in new hires and technology to deliver legal services efficiently, cost-effectively and across departments.

Nathan Wenzel, the co-founder of SimpleLegal, proposes an alternative to existing legal operations maturity models – one honed from working with more than 200 corporate legal departments.  While he outlines five distinct levels of legal operations maturity, he also emphasizes that the goal is to find the place in the spectrum that works best for your organization.

(source: Law Technology Today)

#5

CLOC Welcomes New Legal Technology Members

In 2016, CLOC allowed only in-house counsel as members. In 2019, they welcomed legal operations professionals. In the latest legal operations news, they’re opening the doors wider by inviting more members, including technology companies, service providers and law schools.

What should all CLOC members expect? According to Betsi Roach, CLOC’s executive director, there will be an expanded array of topics and perspectives. As she explains in the CLOC press release on the matter:

“Our members and the greater legal community are hungry for more resources to answer questions and advance their careers. Creating a place that champions diversity of ideas and thoughts will not only disrupt the business of law but will define professional growth paths and pave the way for future generations. This is an exciting advancement on our continued journey to make a real impact on both the legal industry and for those in our community to grow their networks.” 

To learn more about CLOC memberships, visit here.

(sources: Corporate Counsel and CLOC)

Discover More Legal Operations Trends with Lean Into Legal Ops

Speaking of legal operations, Onit is expanding our Lean Into Legal Ops virtual learning program to include even more members of the legal community and provide even more diverse content. Past webinars have included:

Get the inside track on legal operations trends, the very best events and helpful content from the legal community by joining Legal Into Legal Ops today. Visit this page to join.

How Sales CLM with Contract AI Helps Business Development Automation

Posted on February 9, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

It’s impossible to imagine any organization’s sales function without considering contracts. Sales operations professionals handle some of a company’s most value-generating activities: overseeing daily sales activity, meeting with major clients, drawing up sales reports, designing new and more effective sales strategies, and working to market and promote company products and services. 

None of those activities are possible if you can’t effectively manage your sales contracts and glean insights from them. Tools to manage contracts, including contract AI, are designed to ensure that sales operations and the VP of sales have a single point of truth for contracts. In addition, business development automation makes the sales Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) process more efficient, and the entire sales function more effective. 

Contract AI Software in Sales

The sales function at any enterprise encompasses various duties, ranging from discrete contractual tasks to overarching strategy. On the contractual front, sales operations are responsible for many phases of contract lifecycle management, including: 

  • Creating requests for contracts 
  • Drafting contracts 
  • Monitoring the progress of those contracts 
  • Keeping contracts moving forward when things stall 
  • Approving contract terms 
  • Delivering contracts to customers for signature 

The sales function doesn’t end there. In addition to handling contracts daily, sales operations professionals find new opportunities to expand the organization’s client base and devise new and innovative ways to market products and services. It’s also responsible for setting specific critical enterprise goals and ensuring they’re met, including quarterly or annual sales and ongoing productivity goals. 

Underlying all sales functions, whether drafting a contract or setting the right sales goals for the entire company, is the expectation that the VP of sales and the sales operations team will continuously improve the sales team’s effectiveness and productivity. 

Technology is the key to ensuring continuous improvement. Sales CLM tools and contract AI empower sales operations professionals to better tackle both aspects of the job by making the contract process more efficient and effective from start to finish. In addition, AI–enabled sales management software helps create a central repository for the organization’s contract data. The central repository is a critical source of information for making informed decisions about sales goals and marketing strategies.

Finding the Right Sales CLM Solution and Contract AI Software

While every company and sales department is different, some common barriers prevent sales operations from performing effectively and efficiently. These include: 

  • Having little to no insight into where deals are, who’s responsible for them, and what the next steps are
  • Missing an easy way to keep deals moving forward
  • Not having mobile technology options to effectively handle work tasks in today’s on-the-go and remote working scenarios
  • Lacking self-service options that allow the various interested parties to create and manage that contract or request information directly.

A valuable sales CLM tool and contract AI software will remove barriers and help sales by: 

  • Closing deals faster with features such as self-service and contract AI that reviews, redlines and edits first-pass review within two minutes
  • Automating the contract request process to improve sales representative productivity 
  • Giving sales a real-time view of bottlenecks, where every contract is, and if the process is stalled 
  • Only showing the information you need when you need it, rather than burying you in a mountain of data irrelevant to what you’re doing at any given moment. Having immediate access to the correct data is critical to setting the right sales and productivity goals for your team and the entire organization. 

Speeding Up CLM for Sales – and Welcoming Revenue More Quickly

Sales operations professionals understand the role of contracts in doing their job right. However, they need the right CLM tools for sales to manage those contracts end-to-end. Onit’s CLM solution helps with business development automation for the entire contract management process, allowing for a more efficient sales function and better insight into sales data. Contact us today to learn more.