Contract Analytics Software: Concord

From legal document to strategic assets, through contract analytics

Contract ownership is evolving beyond the legal department. Concord’s 2024 survey of finance and operations leaders revealed that 100% of respondents noted that contract management is becoming a cross-functional imperative. CFOs, finance heads, operations managers, and procurement specialists are all taking greater ownership of the contract process.

As Nikos Anthopoulos, Efficiency Manager at Navarino, explains: “I’m under the office of the CEO. My role is to help processes and software run faster.” This statement captures the strategic importance that organizations now place on contract efficiency.

Automated data extraction and analysis

Advanced contract analytics software leverages natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to automatically extract key information from agreements, including:

• Parties and signatories
• Key dates (effective dates, expiration dates, renewal deadlines)
• Financial terms and obligations
• Service level agreements (SLAs)
• Legal provisions and clauses
• Risk factors and compliance requirements
• Hidden costs

Michael Bearman, Chief Legal & Safety Officer at Vecna Robotics, highlights the transformative impact of this automation: “I used to have to spend lots of time on this, but now I just hit ‘create document’ because the AI does a great job automatically. Before we’d make errors like missing key dates or transposing numbers, which caused problems down the line. Now, with Concord, that information is automatically captured and validated, so we can trust its accuracy.”

Centralized contract repository with advanced search capabilities

The lack of real-time visibility into contract data is a major pain point for organizations. In Concord’s 2024 survey, 100% of finance and operations leaders highlighted this issue as a significant challenge.

As Gaia Olcese, Procurement Manager at Satispay, notes: “Better visibility would be amazing. We have more than 12,000 contracts, and their data is not sorted.” This inability to quickly find and analyze contract data hinders proactive management, creates inefficiencies, and exposes organizations to unnecessary financial risk.

Modern contract analytics platforms address this through:

• Centralized storage for all agreements
• Advanced search functionality that locates specific clauses and provisions
• Customizable tags and metadata for efficient organization
• Optical character recognition (OCR) to make even scanned documents searchable
• Automated categorization of contracts by type, department, or risk level

Proactive renewal management

Effective renewal management represents a significant opportunity for cost savings. Research indicates that 88% of organizations struggle with managing contract renewals effectively, often missing opportunities to renegotiate terms or accidentally allowing unfavorable agreements to auto-renew.

David Morgan, CFO at Loop Returns, articulates this challenge succinctly: “We’ve passed an auto renewal cut off date, and now we’re locked in.” This highlights the financial repercussions of delayed decision-making.

Advanced contract analytics platforms address this through:

• Automated alerts for upcoming renewal dates
• Renewal workflows that assign tasks to responsible stakeholders
• Historical spending analysis to inform renewal negotiations
• Vendor performance tracking to support data-driven renewal decisions

Current AI capabilities and limitations

Artificial intelligence is dramatically reshaping contract repository software, offering unprecedented efficiency and insights. A comprehensive market analysis found that 88% of finance and operations leaders recognize AI’s transformative potential, while acknowledging the need for careful implementation and human oversight.

AI’s current capabilities in contract analysis include:

1. Automated data extraction: Identifying and classifying key contract elements
2. Clause recognition: Spotting standard and non-standard clauses
3. Risk identification: Flagging potentially problematic language or terms
4. Pattern recognition: Identifying trends across contract portfolios
5. Anomaly detection: Highlighting unusual provisions that deviate from standards

However, AI in contract analytics also has important limitations:

As Pepe Carr, General Counsel at Sand Technologies, observes: “If your learning model can raise their hand and say, ‘I don’t know what this is, please take a look,’ then you are off to reduce legal headcount.” This highlights the value of “human-in-the-loop” systems, where AI assists legal professionals by flagging potential issues for review rather than making final decisions autonomously.

Tammy Carroll, Contract and Strategy Manager at OneCare Vermont, reinforces this perspective: “You still need a human.” This reflects the understanding that AI should be seen as a tool to augment, not replace, human judgment.

Future directions in AI-powered contract analytics

As natural language processing and machine learning continue to advance, we can expect to see AI contract analytics expand in several directions:

1. Predictive analytics: Using historical data to forecast potential contract outcomes and suggest improvements
2. Conversational interfaces: Allowing users to query contract data using natural language
3. Automated benchmarking: Comparing contract terms against industry standards and suggesting optimizations
4. Integration with negotiation processes: Real-time guidance during contract negotiations
5. Contextual understanding: Better comprehension of industry-specific terminology and requirements

The challenge of data silos

The concept of a “single source of truth” for contract data is a powerful ideal. However, Concord’s survey revealed that 75% of finance and operations leaders acknowledge that achieving this ideal is more complex than it seems. Data silos, where contract information is scattered across ERPs, CRMs, specialized tools, and even email inboxes, are the primary obstacle.

David Morgan, CFO at Loop Returns, describes how his billing team often has to “crack open the PDF” because not all contract information syncs with their billing system. This reliance on unstructured data highlights the inefficiency and potential for errors inherent in manual reconciliation.

The integration imperative

Modern legal contract management software platforms address this challenge through robust integration capabilities. Research indicates that 75% of organizations consider seamless integrations between contract lifecycle management systems and other core business applications to be essential.

Christopher Tufts, FP&A Manager at Iterable, emphasizes this point: “An integrated CLM is important so we can serve all our principal audiences from the same system.”

Effective integrations should include:

• Two-way data synchronization: Ensuring data consistency across systems
• Automated triggers: Initiating actions in other systems based on contract events
• Native integrations: Pre-built connections to common business applications
• APIs and webhooks: Enabling custom integrations for specialized needs

Key evaluation criteria

When evaluating contract analytics solutions, organizations should consider:

1. Data extraction accuracy: The system’s ability to correctly identify and extract key information
2. Integration capabilities: Native connections to existing business systems
3. User experience: Intuitive interfaces for legal and non-legal users
4. AI capabilities: Current functionality and development roadmap
5. Security and compliance: Data protection measures and regulatory adherence
6. Customization options: Ability to adapt to specific business needs
7. Implementation support: Training, onboarding, and ongoing assistance
8. Total cost of ownership: Subscription fees, implementation costs, and ROI potential

The Concord advantage

Concord’s Agreement Intelligence platform stands out as the best contract lifecycle management software, through its:

• AI-powered data extraction that automatically identifies key terms, dates, and obligations
• Intuitive interface that requires minimal training for both legal and non-legal users
• Robust integration capabilities with popular CRM, ERP, and financial systems
• Comprehensive workflow tools that streamline contract processes
• Advanced analytics that provide actionable insights into contract portfolios

As Jamie Garfield, VP of Sales at PAAY, observes: “Concord has just been great for us. We adore the AI features. There’s no other contract platform that delivers this much value at this price point. Period.”