![]() ![]() The business was experiencing frequent bottlenecks in finalizing sales and procurement contracts because many were bespoke. The EY organization has recently helped a telecoms company do exactly this. In addition to saving money, these approaches can improve speed and consistency. This type of work can also be consolidated into a shared or managed-services delivery model. In addition to automation, these lower-value activities can be outsourced to alternative legal-service providers or contract specialists who are experts in this area. It is therefore up to the GC to make the case to senior leadership that technology can deliver significant value for the entire business.Īs mentioned earlier, around a quarter of legal teams’ time is devoted to routine activities that are way below the pay grade of highly qualified lawyers. 2īudgetary concerns can be a major obstacle to technology investment. Indeed, 63% of TMT businesses say that the legal function has not benefited from innovation as much as other functions. Many general counsels (GC) are already aware of the tremendous improvements that technologies like this can deliver, but they have not yet fully deployed them. Automating these tasks can therefore go some way to overcoming legal departments’ talent challenges. 1 This is, in part, because around a quarter of lawyers’ time is spent conducting routine compliance and low-value tasks. The majority of TMT legal departments face challenges in attracting and retaining top talent. Speed and accuracy aside, this technology lowers costs and frees up lawyers’ time for more complex, high-value and ultimately fulfilling work. For example, by installing and heavily customizing a legal technology platform, a telecoms company that the EY organization worked with managed to reduce average contracting time from 45 to 31 days, customer churn by 7% and bad debt by a third because it was better able to enforce its contractual positions. Get this right and technology can deliver tremendous benefits. The technology must also integrate with wider workflows, such as how the legal team receives instructions from the business. Strict governance around how the technology is used must be established to maximize the benefits. It can also flag potential anomalies for supervisors to scrutinize.īut technology by itself is not enough. By deploying sophisticated automation and contract-management and analytics technology, contracts can be created and reviewed faster and more accurately than they can by lawyers. Take the example of reviewing and generating contracts. Here are four ways that legal teams can shed this reputation, and instead be viewed as beacons of dynamism.īy utilizing new technology, and effectively integrating it into workflows, legal teams can move faster. ![]() The economic fallout of the pandemic is likely to put even more pressure on legal departments to control costs, while the volume of work will likely remain high.īut despite these circumstances, these is a perception across many TMT businesses that their legal teams could act faster. In parallel, 72% of TMT companies planned to reduce legal-function costs over the next 24 months ‒ and that was before COVID-19 struck. According to the EY report Why the legal function must be reimagined for the digital age, the majority of legal teams reported a large or moderate increase in demand placed on them over the past five years. This has meant that simply getting the job done has taken precedence over speed and innovation. In their defense, for many years, legal departments have been asked to do more with less. Moreover, those trying to drive expansion into new markets fear getting bogged down by local regulations. Sales teams are known to grumble about a perceived lack of urgency when legal is reviewing a contract and product teams complain that their innovation is stifled by bureaucratic compliance procedures. Legal teams, unfortunately, are not renowned for their dynamism and agility. New products and services must be brought to market rapidly, technology must be developed and deployed with urgency and relationships with partners and suppliers must be forged with haste. Competing in the TMT sector requires speed. ![]()
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