Introduction
With the uncertainty of a post-Covid market, companies are struggling with how to enhance revenue without increasing costs. However, there is an untapped internal resource, rarely accessed and analyzed, which could help companies overcome this conundrum: Contract Metadata.In those tens, hundreds, thousands of contract documents, relegated to the digital filing cabinet never to be looked at again, are terabytes of information ready to be used. This includes customer/supplier information, terms of agreement and finances, and could be a key to success.
When stored and digested properly, this data could help companies limit inefficiencies, track trends and make money.
The problem is, in a disorganized system, this data can be inaccessible on a large-scale. Busy in-house teams don’t have the time nor the resources to look through each and every contract, hoping to find a nugget of usefulness. Mindcrest can help you understand the types of data available to you, how to use it and, most importantly, how to get to it.
What is Contract Metadata?
When we talk about Contract Metadata, we're talking about all the information a contract holds. This could include simple information such as party names, contract values and expiration dates, or more complex information, such as how long it took for a contract to be negotiated, how long it took for the contract to be signed once agreed, what clauses received the most push back or whether a contract was renewed.Once you do find an effective way to capture and record this information it can have an immediate effect on your bottom line.
How Can We Use Contract Data?
The ways you can use this data to help your business are as varied as the data itself. Here are ways we have seen organizations successfully utilize this information.Find Patterns: By focusing on which clauses are heavily negotiated, you can assess whether these clauses can be made more reasonable, therefore easing contract frictions and making your contracts easier to understand. This means less time in legal, more time selling. Your customers will know what you're about and will want to work with you.
Rank Priorities: With contract data, you can look at the numbers from your agreements all in one place. This is helpful if you're dealing with a large volume of contracts at the same time from multiple parties. With the ability to see value, particular parties and expiration dates, it becomes much easier to prioritize.
Enhance Procurement: Easily accessible numbers help you identify risky or poor performing suppliers. This data also helps you bolster your business justifications when purchasing, manage risk strategy and consider whether certain business relationships are worth the risk involved.
Forecast Pipelines: Utilizing contract information allows you to look ahead by tracking sales and revenue metrics, such as the value of existing contracts, and project future income streams based on new agreements. With a clearer vision, forecasts become more accurate.
Keep Partners: Automated reminders set up from contract data can help you keep track of which agreements need to be renewed, by when and who needs to be involved. With an easy way to keep track of agreement timelines, you can more easily decide whether to indeed renew or not ahead of time.
How Do We Capture and Leverage the Data?
So why aren’t more legal departments working with their contract data? The short answer is extracting and analyzing the data is a difficult job and companies don't have the right procedures or processes in place to do this. Building this system up can take years on your own.
Mindcrest can make it easier.
Contract+, Mindcrest’s managed Contract Lifecycle Management service, taps into the wellspring of data in your processors. This endeavor is an end-to-end effort where our contract experts work closely with your team to understand the needs of your organization, identify bottlenecks, and devise a cohesive strategy for Contract Lifecycle Management. By creating centralized repositories, standardizing templates and implementing negotiation processes, we can work with you to create an efficient CLM system with easily accessible data. Plus, we can also consult on the best legal tech to implement and how best to use this newly found information.
Simply put, Contract+ can revolutionize the way your business manages agreements and can help your organization save money.
