BUSINESSMANAGEMENTREVIEW.COMDECEMBER - JANUARY9legal go digital to keep pace with the businesses' acceleration. However, I am aware that this kind of support may not always be available in different industries. It could be a challenge for legal to convince the senior executives to embrace legal technology to help their organisation. In leading the Legal team, one of my priorities is to drive the team to focus on embracing simplicity, technology, and innovation. Never afraid to test and learn, especially on finding ways to streamline the process and improve efficiency through technology transformation. For instance, when we experience tasks with long processes, numerous or high volumes of documents, layers of approvals, repetition or routine tasks, this is the opportunity for legal to optimize the use of technology and to make it a user-friendly experience both for legal and business users. Some examples: · we are implementing a contract management automation solution (platform) to speed up contract review processes and provide access to our standard templates of contracts, tailored/adapted contracts as well as all relevant information pertaining to contracts. This allows the business to initiate the process, have access to their contracts, get notified when the contracts need to be renewed and only brings lawyers into the fold when the contract is new or different. This has released my team to work on much more strategic and higher value-add matters. With e-signature, the internal approval/governance process is automated, increasing efficiency while internal governance is maintained. · e-commerce, social media commerce and the expansion of the digital economy (online payment, payment gateways, etc.) have exponentially increased during the pandemic. Consumers are more comfortable in and even embracing this online purchase environment. For lawyers, this can give rise to potential legal issues and some arguably new issues, to name a few ­ the increased cases of counterfeit products sold online, data privacy, etc. One of the proactive approaches to anti-counterfeit efforts with online products was launched by our Global team using artificial intelligence, which can detect and monitor for infringements online using a data crawling platform. The tool can also produce reports with customized details. This tool helps us strategize in our approach to fighting online intellectual property infringements. In the old days, many companies and law firms would use manual force to do the detection and monitoring by assigning junior staff to perform the task full-time, this may have worked then, but in today's context this would be very counter-productive. Introducing technology as an integral part of legal services may not always be easy, resistance sometimes come not only from the lawyers but also from the business as they also need to change the way they operate, learn new things, and adapt. Getting people to adopt any piece of technology that changes the way they do things is essentially change management, therefore it is critical to choose technologies that will help lawyers do their job more effectively and will be user friendly at the same time that benefits can also be enjoyed by the business. Technology will continue to be increasingly important, as what we are doing becoming more automated and digital: like it or not, lawyers must be prepared and ready to embrace what will come next. IT IS CRITICAL TO CHOOSE TECHNOLOGIES THAT WILL HELP LAWYERS DO THEIR JOB MORE EFFECTIVELY AND WILL BE USER FRIENDLY AT THE SAME TIME THAT BENEFITS CAN ALSO BE ENJOYED BY THE BUSINESS
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