India has always loved to leapfrog when it comes to technology, so adoption has been easier than elsewhere in the world. It is exciting to imagine how quickly technology can change the country for the better, says Monish Darda, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Icertis in conversation with Elets News Network (ENN).
Icertis has gained unicorn status. What are the factors that led to this achievement?
Samir Bodas and I co-founded Icertis ten years ago and soon realised the untapped potential of the Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) market.
Being born in the cloud, an API first approach, painstaking attention to the user experience, a platform approach to enterprise contract management – these factors and more have been very useful on this journey.
But the most important factor has been the Icertians, customers, partners, investors and analysts that have supported us and have had faith in our values (Fairness, Openness, Respect, Teamwork and Execution – FORTE)
Give us an overview of your AI-infused Icertis Contract Management (ICM) platform.
Contract management has traditionally been a document management system. The Icertis Contract Management (ICM) platform broke that mold to emerge as the 5th system of record (joining CRM, ERP, SCM and HR as the systems of record in the enterprise).
ICM ensures that contract objects (contract, template, clause and obligation) can participate in business processes, helping draft, negotiate, approve, execute and manage the contract and the transactions that depend on it.
With cutting edge AI (ICM has one of the largest curated contract repositories in the world) that provides important insights within the business process, stakeholders can take decisions faster, more efficiently – at the same time reducing risk and increasing compliance. To illustrate a few examples, the platform helps:
*The world’s top airline manufacturers connect their sell-side contracts to buy-side contracts to reduce risk and improve margins
*IT services companies manage their contractual obligations better, unlocking hidden revenue
*Three of the 5 largest companies (by market cap) in the world manage their entire contract repository globally
*The world’s top pharmaceutical companies save 10’s of millions of dollars in procurement costs annually
What innovations are you planning to implement in the coming years?
Icertis is planning to increase its investment in the industry-leading ICM platform and continue to grow our stable of verticalized business applications built on the platform to help customers increase revenue, reduce costs, improve cash flow, manage risk and ensure compliance.
The company is in the process of extending the Icertis Blockchain Framework, the world’s first blockchain framework integrated with an enterprise contract management platform, to create practical and transformative solutions to solve real-world business challenges including supply chain transparency, certification compliance, outcome-based pricing and more.
Additionally, we will accelerate the infusion of artificial intelligence and advanced cognitive services into the ICM platform to solve previously intractable enterprise contract management challenges that can be uniquely addressed only by these new technologies.
Premji Invest has joined the Icertis family. What are your expectations from this partnership?
We are thrilled to have Premji Invest join the Icertis team! The company’s investment is a sign of the tremendous growth in tech advancements in India. The partnership will help Icertis continue to foster incredible talent and leverage the experience of the very talented people at Premji Invest to help us in our next phase of growth. We are also excited about the lpossibilities of drawing on the experience of Premji Invest in becoming an even more socially responsible organisation.
How do rate India readiness to technologies like AI, ML, and blockchain?
India has an incredibly diverse ecosystem – both in terms of talent and use cases. There had been great talents in mathematics and statistics, the foundations of AI/ML and blockchain, and we are just looking at the tip of the iceberg as these technologies thrive in the ecosystem.
Also, India has always loved to leapfrog when it comes to technology, so adoption has been easier than elsewhere in the world. It is exciting to imagine how quickly technology can change the country for the better.
We are investing heavily in India and expect to hire some great talent and build some great features in our mission of becoming the contract management platform of the world.
