184. Making savings from better contract management
Oct 1, 2022
auto_awesome
Richard Martin, founder of Thinking Machine, discusses cost savings through improved contract management using AI technology. Topics include overlooked procurement leaks, benefits of better contract management, and the impact of technology on SME contract management.
Align negotiations with business needs to prevent overpayments for cost savings.
Artificial intelligence in contract management enhances pricing optimization and identifies cost-saving opportunities.
Deep dives
Improving Cost Savings Through Better Contract Management
The podcast discusses the significance of improving cost savings through enhanced contract management. Richard, the founder of Thinking Machine, shares insights from his telecom industry experience where understanding complex contracts led to significant revenue efficiencies. He emphasizes the importance of aligning negotiations with actual business needs to avoid overpayments. Implementing systems for ongoing contract verification and tracking invoices can lead to 25% greater cost savings.
The Role of Contract Management in Achieving Savings
The episode highlights the role of contract management in achieving savings. Contract management is depicted as an essential tool for streamlining legal processes and understanding the value derived from contracts. By connecting contracts with invoices, organizations can analyze services used, costs incurred, and identify opportunities for cost-effectiveness.
Utilizing Artificial Intelligence in Contract Management
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in contract management is explored, focusing on Thinking Machine's AI platform. Richard explains how semantic technology enables automated analytics to optimize pricing options and identify cost-saving opportunities. The platform's data extraction capabilities facilitate efficient analysis of contracts and invoices, aiding companies in achieving continuous cost savings and enhancing contract management processes.
Richard is the founder and CEO at Thinking Machine, it's a new breed of expense management focused on savings and consolidated billing where he created a special system with machine learning and AI technology dedicated to making complex contracts and billing reporting simple and accurate. With close to US$1M in funding by 2021, and experience working with invoices and contracts from 26 countries in 18 languages, Thinking Machine is rapidly becoming a must have solution for telecom companies and enterprises with large annual spend on Telco and IT services. Prior to this role, Richard was a Business Intelligence Lead at Tesla for over a decade.
Some of the questions we asked Richard during our conversation.
What are the most common leaks that procurement overlooks when looking for cost savings?
How can a better CM (Contract management) improve savings?
If I were a founder of a new SME (Small business-entreprise), Will you still recommend using "the technology" to manage CM (Contract management)
What is the ideal CM (Contract management) in one sentence?