Icertis with logoIcertis, a provider of enterprise contract management in the cloud, is collaborating with Microsoft to expand the Icertis Blockchain Framework to create a more sustainable, ethical and open world.  By enhancing the connection between blockchain/distributed ledger technology and contract management, Icertis and Microsoft seek to deliver greater transparency, speed of execution and improved compliance in increasingly critical areas of modern business.

More than ever, enterprises must maintain sophisticated governance and contract compliance, and blockchain technology has a critical role to play,” said Monish Darda, CTO and Co-founder at Icertis. “We are thrilled to work with Microsoft to extend the Icertis Blockchain Framework to solve the most critical contracting challenges – enabling a new level of visibility and control in the contract management space, while helping build a more ethical and sustainable enterprise ecosystem.

Monish Darda
Monish Darda

The Icertis and Microsoft connection

Customers like Mercedes-Benz Cars have already taken advantage of smart contracts by using the Icertis Blockchain Framework to create an immutable distributed ledger of transactions. This aids and supports global sourcing and contracting best practices, and ensures these adhere to Mercedes-Benz Cars’ strict requirements for sustainable, ethical and secure sourcing.

With expanded capabilities – developed with Microsoft – customers will be able to apply blockchain technology to address additional business processes requiring transparency. These will include:

  • measuring supplier diversity
  • tracking product provenance
  • executing outcome-based pricing.

Icertis and Microsoft will expand the application of blockchain and distributed ledger technology to contract management by:

  • using the Microsoft Azure Blockchain Workbench to enable rapid prototyping and provisioning of blockchain solutions on the Icertis Blockchain Framework for Icertis Contract Management (ICM) platform global customers.
  • leveraging the Azure Blockchain Workbench ecosystem (of Service Bus, Azure Active Directory, Logic Apps and other components) in combination with the Icertis Blockchain Framework
  • building the foundation of Icertis’ next generation smart contract platform.

By connecting Azure Cognitive Services components and the Icertis Blockchain Framework with the ICM platform, the combination should to provide business solutions that leverage AI/ML and blockchain technology to deliver:

  • compliance
  • certification
  • provenance tracking
  • outcome-based pricing ICM apps.
Penny Philpot
Penny Philpot

Icertis and Microsoft continue to partner on digital transformation solutions that leverage blockchain in innovative and meaningful ways,” said Penny Philpot, Vice President of One Commercial Partner, Microsoft Corp. “Together, we are giving our enterprise customers a competitive edge with technologies that have immediate impact on their responsible business practices.

About Icertis, ICM and the Blockchain Framework

Icertis offers an enterprise contract management platform in the cloud. This seeks to solve the toughest contract management challenges via an easy to use platform. With the Icertis Contract Management (ICM) platform, enterprises can accelerate business activities by:

  • increasing contract velocity
  • protecting against risk
  • ensuring regulatory and policy compliance
  • optimising commercial relationships
  • maximising revenue
  • reducing costs.

Enterprises which already use the AI-infused ICM platform include:

  • 3M
  • Airbus
  • Cognizant
  • Daimler
  • Microsoft
  • Sanofi.

In total the ICM platform manages 5.7 million contracts in 40+ languages across 90+ countries.

By combining the power of the ICM platform with the Blockchain Framework, customers can:

  • deploy a permissioned, standards-based blockchain within the core ICM platform on Microsoft Azure
  • record specific transactions (based on rules and metadata including clauses, associations, obligations, and entitlements)
  • add oracles, notaries, and other trusted data sources (for example Dun & Bradstreet, Thomson Reuters, exchange rates, etc.)
  • define smart clauses for specific contract types which trigger actions based on changes to the state of a contract or obligation
  • exchange information with existing, standards-based blockchains
  • monitor and manage solutions via the analytics provided by the ICM platform.

Enterprise Times: what does this mean

For enterprises the Icertis Blockchain Framework is applicable for tracking contractual requirements, obligations, commitments and fulfillment across multiple entities. This should enable improved levels of collaboration, visibility and accountability – and address intractable challenges, like:

  • the use of child labor and conflict materials in supply chains
  • the tracing of tainted food distribution (thereby facilitating recalls)
  • tracking efficacy-based pharmaceutical outcomes.

The Icertis Blockchain Framework was built on Azure, Blockchain Workbench, Cognitive Search and Cognitive Services.  As such Icertis believes the Blockchain Framework is the first to connect blockchain and distributed ledger systems (like Ethereum and Corda) to an enterprise CLM system in ways that have a broad-based and productive effect.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here