For contract managers and accounts payable teams, process discovery and RPA (robotic process automation) can considerably improve the process of reviewing commercial documents such as order forms, statements of work, and governing agreements for signatures. A process discovery tool like SurfaceAI helps to diagnose process bottlenecks and vulnerabilities based on real data rather than assumptions. And RPA helps to accelerate manual, repetitive, and time-consuming tasks. Both the tools when implemented right help organizations to drive process efficiencies and achieve cost savings.
Contract Management Challenges
One of the most common challenges with the contract management process is tracking whether the promised services are being delivered as planned. This includes ensuring all the terms of a contract are met, auditing delivered services as per the agreed contract, constantly checking whether the vendors are meeting service level agreement (SLA) targets, evaluating limitations of liability, and taking measures to ensure contract conformity.
According to a study by the International Association for Contract & Commercial Management (IACCM), a low-risk contract from draft to negotiation to signature costs a business an average of $6900. The same cost increases to $21,300 for mid-complexity contracts and hundreds of thousands of dollars for high complexity contracts. When the stake is this high, it becomes critical for businesses to optimize the process to avoid breaches and optimize processes for both compliance and efficiency.
Process Discovery for Contract Management
For a global enterprise with teams working from various parts of the globe, it’s only natural for deviations to creep into the processes. A company can implement a standard back-office system for their teams spread across different geographies with the intention to standardize the processes for equal products (except for some small localization). However, an effective process discovery can quickly reveal how the process execution, in reality, does not follow the same path and the data does not flow through systems in the same way. Process discovery even lets you see which processes are not following the standard operating procedure (SOP).
One of the primary reasons for such deviations and variations is a lack of training employees on the standard practices and the act of blindly copying processes from the old system to the new. Process discovery enables enterprises to identify the frequency of process variations, the violating contracts, and the risks associated with every deviation. Business leaders can use this information to redesign and standardize processes to align the configuration with the desired process models. In a single dashboard, business leaders can understand the actual business
process on the contract level in an intuitive and easy visualization and gain visibility into how the same process is being executed by teams at different locations. They can even identify concrete action points and well-selected improvement opportunities to reduce costs and improve the quality of their contract management processes.
SurfaceAI for Process Discovery
A global enterprise like yours needs an advanced, automated process discovery tool to discover hidden processes and uncover automation opportunities that deliver maximum ROI. SurfaceAI has a proven track record for enabling businesses at multiple locations to visualize their “AS-IS” processes to achieve the best results.
Want to learn how you can optimize your contract management process? Talk to our experts today.