IBM - Best New Sales Automation Solution

Company: IBM, Armonk, NY
Company Description: IBM is a values-based enterprise of individuals who create & apply technology to make the world work better. Today, more than 400,000 IBM employees around the world invent and integrate hardware, software and services to help forward-thinking enterprises, institutions and people succeed on a smarter planet.
Nomination Category: New Product & Service Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Sales Automation Solution – New

Nomination Title: Contracting Language Analyzer (CLA)

CLA leverages the power of Watson and many deep learning and ML models to analyze written contracts to identify risky words in the context of the contract. It also looks for missing mandatory terms, deviations of terms from standard, categorization of terms used, and identification of Account Receivable related to non-standard payment. It allows the stakeholders to take action to correct the contracts before the negotiation with the clients. The same analysis is also made available for the Sales and Delivery Team once the contracts are signed.

CLA is an application hosted in a hybrid cloud and built with microservices architecture. The solution's design enabled the team to quickly expand the analysis in various domains such as services groups, Accounts Receivable, Delivery Excellence, Project Management, Data Security, and Privacy teams.

Below are the capabilities of the CLA model:

- scan the contract (OCR)
- categorize and classify the contract data using Watson / NLC / Word Embedding / WordNet / semantic Sentence finder / DL model etc..
- Configurable and expandable Risky words and Terms based on dictionary by type of analysis
- identify the risky words in the context of the sentence (e.g. IBM obligation Vs Customer exclusion)
- Identify the Terms that have been modified from basic terms using semantic Sentence analysis
- Identify Missing Basic Terms using semantic Sentence analysis
- Identify Key attributes
- Comparison of a written contract with the template associated
- Comparison of multiple contracts
- Calculate a risk score based on various attributes
- Complete micro service architecture to integrate with multiple systems within IBM

Since January 2020 many major improvements were accomplished:

• the powerful user interface in Carbon framework allows the end user to see the content in the structure of the contract and allows them to make adjustments
• better performances - the analysis of a 60 pages contract takes between 15 secs to 1 min
• microservices architecture allowed analysis to be expanded to different user groups and different type of analysis
• introduction of admin area enabled quick updates to the words/terms to look for depending on the type of analysis

Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):

Please see Hackett Digital Group's press release about Hackett Award awarded in June 2020 to IBM – Lead to Cash Transformation Powered by AI – AI Winner (that includes Contracting Language Analyzer)
https: //www.thehackettgroup.com/news/the-hackett-group-names-2020-digital-award-winners-companies-on-the-cutting-edge-of-analytics-automation-artificial-intelligence-and-digital-transformation/

User testimonials:

‘The Contracting Language Analyzer provides our Sellers and Risk Managers with a more efficient way of intelligently analysing unstructured contractual language prior to signing, to help mitigate and reduce risky words/sentences and missing clauses, that historically have been a key driver of profit degradation and reduced client satisfaction’- John Delaney, Director - Global Quality and Client Value Global Business Services

‘Amazing tool also for Offering Managers !!’- Carol Ann Carter - Global Offering Management Deployment, Program & Change Mgmt, IBM Cloud and Cognitive Software

‘This tool has such potential - I just submitted an old SOW for analysis and the insights and recommendations are incredibly helpful! I will certainly share this with all the partners, APs, etc. in my IBM network.’- Daniel Holt - Application Architect Global Business Services

If you are nominating a brand-new product or service, state the date on which it was released. If you are nominating a new version of an existing product or service, state the date on which the update was released:

Contract managementis an essential daily task in "lead to cash" processes for Enterprises dealing with both buy-side and sell-side contracts. A well-written contract is necessary to avoid contracts getting into disputes and claims. Within IBM Services Lines of Business, the global quality goal is to drive quality end-to-end through solution design processes to bid release right into delivery. With the advancement in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and IBM's own AI Engine Watson, an AI solution was built to identify the associated risks associated with the written contract's poor quality language.

TheContracting Language Analyzer(CLA)allows sellers, legal professionals, risk managers, and project managers to run the contracts thru an AI engine to identify nonstandard terms, risky words, and basic phrases missing from a contract. It allows them to take preventive action to fix the terms before it is sent to the client for signature. Although the initial release of the product in August 2019 was a success, many improvements needed to be made to the underlying algorithm. These included different ML models, the user interface, and devops process for optimal performance.

The analysis of a 60 pages contract was taking between 2 to 3 mins in Aug/Sep 2019.

Outline the market performance, critical reception, and customer satisfaction with the product or service to date. State monetary or unit sales figures to date, if possible, and how they compare to expectations or past performance. Provide links to laudatory product or service reviews. Include some customer testimonials, if applicable (up to 350 words):
A good portion of delivery issues can be directly attributed to contracts. Simultaneously, a substantially higher percentage is indirectly caused by vague contract language, structures, or terms dealing with IBM related issues, i.e., penalties, client obligations, regulatory, etc.

This capability, which uses Watson cognitive capabilities, has helped put the right level of predictive data in the hands of the users at the right point in time during the project's life cycle. It takes the best information and provides them with the ability to do a timely intervention and mitigate losses, either pre-contract signature or during the project launch.

During the sales cycle, the user can scan their draft contract. In a matter of minutes, they are presented with potential contractual exposures in their draft version, e.g., missing clauses, loose language, liability, or data exposures. This allows them to validate and correct any issues and re-scan the draft as often as required until they get a copy, which they believe is sufficiently effective.

During project delivery launch, this also allows the project manager to scan the signed contract and understand in detail what they are committed to in terms of SLAs, penalties, and also if any potential exposures exist, saving them time and providing them with a clear view of client expectations.

The results are:

-better quality contracts being signed and reduction in the number of projects with profit erosion
-estimated 15% direct improvement on contract quality with higher % for indirect benefits
-sales / risk managers current productivity savings (related to time spent on contract read analysis) are about 10% and could increase up to 50%+ with ongoing improvements.

In the last year from August 2019 (initial MVP) up to August 2020, thousands of documents were processed through CLA. More than 20,740 working hours saved for Sales / Risk Managers. This helped to increase productivity (US $2.4M productivity savings) and reduce E2E cycle time to close deals.

The Contracting Language Analyzer helps IBM improve the quality of contracts being signed, resulting in higher client satisfaction and a reduction in the number of projects with profit erosion.