Putting the human back into negotiations

Contract Sent aims to organize what can't be automated by building a human approach to software contract negotiations that scales with startups.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, April 11, 2023/EINPresswire.com/ -- Artificial intelligence is eating the world and making jobs disappear. But there's one job that this tech startup is betting big on not disappearing. Contract Sent is building a platform to help organize and scale the very human process of contract negotiation. While artificial intelligence (AI) has made remarkable advancements in recently, there are still some tasks that it cannot perform says founder and CEO Scott Whitaker. One of those tasks is negotiating the in's and out's of complex software as a service contracts. Contract Sent are focused on making this very human process a whole lot easier while his competitors are looking to AI to replace the humans entirely.

Contract negotiation requires a very human understanding of risk and relationship building that goes beyond raw computational power. Contract Sent has been built to be a collaborative tool that manages the communication of all the people involved to allow leaders to make faster and smarter decisions with their legal resources and close deals quicker.

So why go against the tide of AI that's starting to make a lot of these tasks obsolete? A lot of the competitive contract management tools out there are squarely aimed at companies telling them that they need to standardize their contracts and have all of their customers agree to one set of terms and conditions. "Have you ever negotiated a contract with an enterprise customer? It's not something an AI can or should do" says Whitaker, who has worked in software as a service companies for a decade. Contract negotiation involves a high degree of emotional intelligence, which is currently not possible for AI. Negotiating a contract involves understanding the needs and motivations of your company, your development team, your customer, your investors and runway plus a thousand other intangible things. This requires you to enter into conversations where motivations might change daily and push for the best outcome for your company while reading and interpreting the body language, tone of voice, and other nonverbal cues of the person on the other side of the table (or Zoom camera). While AI can analyze large amounts of data and recognize patterns, it cannot understand emotions or moving data points in the same way that humans do.

Contract negotiation involves the ability to build trust and rapport with your customer. Sometimes you go as far as making a friend or having to call in a favor. Negotiating a contract involves establishing a relationship of mutual respect and understanding. This requires skills such as active listening, empathy, creativity and effective communication, which are currently not within the scope of AI.

In a world where the robots are taking over Contract Sent is building and rallying around the real need for humans to stand firmly as the legal and financial buffers that ensure that we are continuing to do business in the best way for all parties involved. Contract negotiation for SaaS companies selling to enterprise customers can be difficult due to the complexity of the sales process, the specific needs of the customer, and the need to balance profitability with competitive pricing and because of this having a team of humans collaborating is the best way to manage going forwards.

Contract Sent has been built for startup companies that are selling to enterprise customers. This is where contract standarization is just not possible says Whitaker. Enterprise customers often have complex and specific requirements for their software solutions, which can be challenging for small SaaS companies to meet. Negotiating a contract that satisfies the needs of the customer while still being profitable for the SaaS company can be a difficult balancing act. This is especially true for enterprise customers that hold a lot more power in the negotiating process.

This is where the work will be done by humans, that's the bet Contract Sent is placing. After all, aren't businesses built for people to work together and growth better outcomes for each other as well as themselves?

Scott Whitaker
Contract Sent
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An intro to Contract Sent