The inescapable truths: How Summize is shaking up contracts

We all know how businesses are under increasing pressure to deliver quick and efficient services at a cost-effective price. However, trying to change the traditional way of working in any organization is never smooth sailing. Companies are often met with resistance, both internally and externally, and implementing new tools can be a daunting task. Change in any environment can feel unnatural, but what do you do when your ways of working are outdated and a drain on your resources?

Previously, businesses had to manually wade through pages and pages of contracts, with no other alternative. But now, software powered by artificial intelligence (AI), like Summize, can be used to upload, summarize, and review contracts in a matter of minutes instead of hours. Contractual queries and due diligence won’t have to disrupt regular workloads. And, by storing all contracts and information in one place, it simplifies previously complex filing systems and leads to faster response times for internal teams and clients

But how do we achieve this in the first place? At Summize, to create a great platform, we had to identify the ‘Inescapable Truths’ about the teams we help. This boils down to identifying each possible use-case, exploring the enemies to adoption and creating a tailored solution. By identifying and solving these problems with our product, users can then streamline processes, maximise potential revenue, and directly improve employee-satisfaction; creating a happy and productive workplace.

The barriers to quicker contract reviews

Automation

Bringing in any kind of automation is likely to meet some initial resistance. And it’s important to remember that these objections or barriers to adoption always differ from business to business, and across each sector and size. To make automation work, you have to eliminate the traditional ‘one size fits all’ approach and look at making it fit within a pre-existing workflow.

Summize is therefore designed to work alongside legal teams and take on their low value, time-consuming tasks. With little to no implementation required, Summize can be slotted into daily life without any friction. The goal is simply to provide a cost-effective and easy-to-use solution that ultimately helps businesses and legal teams to make contract reviews and the contract lifecycle faster and simpler.

The fight or flight mentality

When it comes to improving the contract lifecycle with software or tech, AI and machine learning are often considered big ‘taboos’. The belief is that they exist to change how a company or person works or replace them. In most people, this triggers the ‘fight or flight’ mentality and blocks businesses from tackling their ‘enemies to change’, which in turn stops them from reaching their full potential.

However, with Summize, we use small steps to improve the way you work without the need for dramatic change. Summize is there, not to replace legal teams or change how they work, but to improve the old ways of working and make contracts quicker and easier to manage.

The inescapable truths for private practice & in-house

Private practice

Within private practice law firms, market competition dictates that service providers must differentiate to succeed, and the winners will be those who provide the most customer-centric, high-value services. Legal technology can and should assist in this, but traditional ways of working can often conflict with technology and result in a lack of adoption,

By using Summize and generating instant summaries of every contract, lawyers can now spend less time reviewing and managing contracts and more time on their customers. And the platform doesn’t force them to change how they work. This allows service providers to meet client expectations and truly differentiate their offering, while also removing low-value tasks. Minimizing those tasks, in turn, also saves the business money and resources.

Additionally, using the Summize partner program, law firms can even generate a new source of revenue, while making contract reviews and management cost-effective. Clients will even have access to their own lightweight contract platform, improving their overall experience and making sure that they come back year after year.

In-house

For in-house legal teams, there is an increased expectation for them to provide additional value beyond their basic role. They are expected to be business leaders and not just legal advisors. However, a lack of time, budget and relevant technology often means legal teams are left having to take on too much, reducing the amount of time they can spend providing additional support to the wider business.

By utilizing a platform like Summize, which removes time spent on low-value tasks and increases internal engagement (using features such as shareable links), in-house legal teams don’t have to spend all of their time on contract reviews or management. Contractual queries can also be answered instantly with Summize using the Contract Insights capability, and auto-renewals won’t be missed using the Contract Calendar.  

Unlike many other heavy AI contract review platforms, Summize believes that improving the contract lifecycle shouldn’t use up your whole budget. Huge costs for unknown tech often play a factor in many organizations resisting the automation adoption process. So, Summize provides user-friendly cost-efficient options that are flexible for your team.

Why Summize is different

Summize summarizes contracts intelligently; identifying and managing the key terms while offering users the ability to create bespoke clauses and contract types, add comments and red flags, and share the summaries with their clients or team members.

Our platform accelerates the contract review process by up to 85% by providing firms with an immediate contract summary containing clauses and terms, making a previously onerous task much slicker.

As a platform, Summize also integrates into the business tools you and your team use daily - such as Outlook, Teams, Slack, Salesforce and more! What does this mean for adoption? It's quick, straightforward and doesn't require a complete overhaul of your existing processes.

To explore how Summize can shake up your contracts and work for your business, take a look at our product offering and the functionality to fit your needs.