We had a call with Denis Potemkin, founder of Majoto (a contract Automator) about how adding contract redesign to your automation project will make it more successful.
The problem – Contracts are a way of getting a business from A to B. So they should be able to meet business outcomes, efficiently. But most companies are still using horses (Word and email) which is slow and messy.
The opportunity – to make contracts work, you need better tools and processes. That’s where automation comes in. Now you’re moving from A to B using something more modern.
The missing piece of the puzzle – however just digitizing your old processes and old content, misses a huge opportunity: the contract itself.
You may be driving from A to B, but if what you’re carrying are reams of dusty manuscripts, you’re missing a huge piece of the puzzle.
If you have a 100-page agreement full of archaisms, you might speed up some elements of its creation and management, but you’re still going to create friction and bottlenecks in customizing it, aligning internally, negotiating it, and managing it post-signature
Most contracts are too long, full of archaisms, lack clarity and focus too much on risk rather than securing business outcomes. Statistics show that most people are unhappy with contracts and don’t understand them.
The solution – redesigning contracts as part of your automation project.
There is a menu of things you can do: lean drafting, plain language, redesigning the structure to make it more usable, making it easier to extract data.
A redesigned contract will bring efficiency to aspects of the process that tech alone can’t.
Benefits – contract redesign alone (without any process or tech work) can add upto 40-50% in efficiency, while also helping to build trust and better relationships, and avoiding lost deals.
It can also create an important differentiator and competitive advantage in how you go out to the market.
The combination of a modern designed contract with tech can be exponentially powerful.
