Last week, Icertis had the pleasure of joining customers and other Microsoft partners at the Microsoft Envision and Ignite conferences. When it comes to connecting with people who are implementing and deploying cutting-edge technologies, nothing beats these annual gatherings.
“Digital transformation” is a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot, but when you bring together technologists designing the latest software and business leaders who are excited to explore how they can use the technology to optimize their business, you quickly begin to understand just how powerful "digital transformation" can be.
Digital Transformation Starts with Contracts
Icertis is at the center of this exciting moment. This year we were named Microsoft's U.S. Partner of the Year, a recognition of the huge potential Microsoft sees in enterprise contract management.
Contracts are the single source of truth for all commitments in an enterprise. Companies are turning to cloud-based Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) software to digitize, connect and mine their contract data across an enterprise—just as companies have spent considerable sums for CRM to do the same for customer data and ERP for resource management data.
Our Icertis Contract Management (ICM) platform is built natively on Microsoft Azure. We solve the hardest contract management problems on the easiest to use platform to help our customers see their contracts for what they are: strategic business assets.
Highlights from the Conferences
We had the great opportunity to join with some of our customers to share the value they've gotten digitally transforming these foundational documents.
Simon Anolick, Director of Legal and IP at HERE Technologies, discussed the importance of creating a single source of truth for contracts across the enterprise. You can watch his presentation here.
Meanwhile, our Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder Monish Darda gave several presentations about how we're using Azure Cognitive Services to infuse AI into the ICM platform. Speaking at a manufacturing breakout session, Darda noted the significance of this moment in business.
"For the first time in history, contracts are being digitized, allowing enterprises to reimagine contract management and place it at the center of their commercial processes. On the sell side, it is critical that contracting enables business and does not slow it down. Artificial Intelligence is transforming the contracting process and at Icertis we are already seeing real benefits for our customers with increased contract velocity, improved compliance and optimized commercial relationships," Darda told the crowd.
What's Next?
Darda was by no means the only person talking about AI. The ways in which this powerful technology will be applied to business processes was a major focus of the conferences.
Few areas of a business will benefit more from the application of AI than contracts. Being able to use AI to extract risk and value from contracts that had previously been difficult or impossible to access will be a game-changer for businesses.
As we continue to expand our AI capabilities, we have also been working with customers to leverage blockchain technology to create more sustainable supply chains. Using blockchain, our customers can cascade from one contract down to the next levels of contracts, which will have a big impact on help enterprises ensure their suppliers are following set ethical and environmental standards.
This is an exciting time to be in the enterprise software space. As Ignite and Envision showed us, business leaders and technologists are rethinking everything about commerce, including their contracts.
To learn more about how we see the future of contract management, contact us today.