Contract management software is changing the way procurement specialists do their jobs. The software can extrapolate line item data identifying needed materials at each stage of the project, and deliver those reports directly to the procurement specialist. 

So what does a procurement specialist do? Procurement specialists, who are also called purchasing managers, manage vendors for the company’s contracts. Ideally, a procurement specialist is capable of negotiating favorable vendor contracts that allow a company to procure goods for a reasonable price. In understanding what the specialist does, it becomes easier to see the advantages of contract management software. 

Some procurement specialists manage hundreds or thousands of contracts, and contract management software that manages the entire lifecycle of the contract, helps them do their jobs much more efficiently. The collaborative nature of the contract management software allows multiple parties to engage in the contract process, shortening the procurement process. 

Contract management software can establish deadline and renewal alerts, online negotiations, e-signatures, and a host of other features that allow procurement specialists to see the entire life cycle of every contract. The ability to keyword search and sort hundreds of contracts give procurement specialists valuable for decision making with just a few keystrokes. 

Shortening the procurement process

Contract management software saves large quantities of time by standardizing the procurement process. The software allows procurement specialists to extrapolate the number of purchases needed quickly and makes creating vendor contracts simple. Most contract management software options include an e-signature option, making finalizing contracts a simple process. 

Before the artificial intelligence in contract management software, contracts required manual tagging to make them searchable by a limited number of parameters. Artificial intelligence now makes it effortless for contracts to be entered, correctly stored, and searchable by a wide array of parameters. Purchasing managers or procurement specialists can now manage a much larger volume of contracts efficiently. 

Procurement departments are automating more of their repetitive task, allowing them to focus on strategy more than transactions. Procurement specialists can improve the efficiency of the entire business, and contract management software is helping to make this possible. 

Competitive procurement systems mean companies receive the best price for products needed, and the better prices companies receive, the more competitive they can be in the market. In addition to helping procurement specialist secure prices advantages, contract management software is allowing companies to improve:

• Risk Management—track market risks, analyze cost and quality and reduce the number of failed contract fulfillments. Contract Risk Management is vital for identifying Non-Compliance, thus enabling corrective action before the contract fails.
 
• Prevent inventory shortages—in older methods, inventory shortages were part of doing business. To avoid an inventory shortage, companies had to overstock items leading to inefficient spending. Now, with contract management software, inventory can be tracked to every bolt.
• Cost-control—the market, in almost every industry, is subject to fast-changing market conditions. Contract management software puts the information to help track changes in an accessible format.

Contract management software, driven by artificial intelligence, are improving procurement processes by providing insights based on large and complex data. Contracts hold a wealth of information, but before the latest trends, much of that data was inaccessible due to the overwhelming volume. Insights can now be drawn from the data in hundreds or even thousands of contracts. Data mining in your own contracts allows companies to detect patterns hidden in the data and will enable them to improve procurement processes based on historical data of what worked effectively and what did not. 

Contract management software reduces the risk of human error, both in creating and managing contracts. Contracts that were mistagged or stored in an incorrect data file were once difficult and time-consuming to track down. Artificial intelligence significantly reduces those risks, giving procurement specialists an edge over the competition. 

The bottom line is that artificial intelligence used in contract management software increases the number of successful contracts, speeds up the contract process and gives unprecedented access to the data contained in contracts. These benefits reduce the likelihood of failed contracts and increase successful transactions.