“I feel very powerful. It feels like I’ve got electricity running through my veins when I’m tackling huge projects, like a superhero.”

That’s how Travis Somerville, Procurement Leader at real estate giant Keller Williams, describes the feeling of having an AI-powered contract management platform at his fingertips.

Travis joined Evisort for a webinar discussion about how artificial intelligence accelerates and increases the ROI of contract management software. He shared lessons from his own team’s successful implementation of Evisort’s powerful contract AI.

According to Paul Branch, Chief Networking Officer at World Commerce & Contracting, poor contract management erodes an average of 9% of negotiated value from deals. For any one deal measured on its own, that number can be twice as high.

On top of that, 90% of business stakeholders consider contracts “hard or impossible” to understand. As a result, more than four out of every five contract management professionals are under pressure to simplify contracts for their organizations.

A majority of procurement and contract managers attending the webinar indicated that they had not yet implemented a contract management system in their own businesses — although most plan to. Other attendees said that they’d implemented one, but had not realized a positive return on investment from adopting the platform they chose.

If you’re in the same boat, then you probably want to know: how do you choose the right contract management technology to get a good ROI? Do I really need AI to be part of my technology strategy?

That’s what Travis and the Keller Williams team asked themselves. The procurement team was hampered by decentralized operations and inconsistent processes. Contracts were stored in different places, which made it difficult to get answers to pressing business questions.

The team identified two priorities:

1. Put all of their contracts in a searchable repository
2. Start mining the contracts for vital business data

The procurement department had experience with contract management software that didn’t use AI, and the results were lackluster. When they saw Evisort’s AI in action, however, “a lightbulb went off.” They knew they had to include AI in their criteria for a new contract management system.

Now, Evisort helps the team manage all of their contracts efficiently in one place.

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‍Here are some of the benefits Keller Williams has realized by leveraging Evisort’s AI:

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Save time creating new contracts and reviewing old contracts

Evisort’s AI finds important clauses, regardless of labeling or formatting. For example, Evisort can correctly identify a force majeure provision based on the context of the language, even if the words “force majeure” are nowhere in the document. That intelligence helps businesses respond quickly to emergencies, such as a pandemic.

That level of adaptability is crucial when reviewing both existing contracts and new drafts — especially if some of them are based on third-party templates. Your AI needs to be able to find what you mean instead of forcing users to try to think of every possible variation on the text. That thoroughness drives cost savings and increased contract compliance.

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Enforce consistent contracting processes

Customizable workflows enable the creation of standardized approval chains. The team can also easily document group consensus within Evisort, rather than waste time tracking down email chains to retrace the conversation.

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Automatically track key data

Automated dashboards are “like radar with living data” on contract renewals. The Keller Williams procurement team was able to catch unwanted vendor contract renewals right away after implementing Evisort, avoiding substantial unnecessary spend. Now, they never miss a renewal deadline.

Centralizing their contract data in Evisort also makes it easier for Keller Williams executives to see the big picture. Evisort brings leaders from the legal, procurement, and finance teams together with a shared understanding of the business.

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Stay ready for acquisitions and emerging compliance concerns

Implementing contract AI is not a “one and done” exercise. Evisort delivers continuous value thanks to its ability to continue to learn over time. There’s always a new compliance standard on the horizon, and contract managers need to be empowered to easily train their contract AI  to find a new type of clause in the contract portfolio — even retrospectively, across years of accumulated documents. A good AI-powered contract management system also makes it easy to set up a new deal room for mergers and acquisitions.

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That ongoing ability to help teams adapt extends the ROI of contract management software across the life of the investment.

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Watch the webinar to hear more from Travis, Paul, and Evisort CMO Michaela Dempsey and Product Marketing Manager Derek Karpel about how you can enhance ROI with contract AI. You’ll also get a chance to see Evisort’s AI in action!