To Neil Abrams, assistant general counsel at IBM, better service to his clients and the customers means keeping it simple. That's why a team spearheaded by Abrams earned international recognition for taking dozens of pages of complex contracts for cloud services and reducing them to a simple, two-page document.
Abrams told CorpCounsel.com that the complex contracts for some 150 cloud services were creating a frustrating roadblock for customers last year. The contracts would end up in the hands of their lawyers, who would want to negotiate the wording, tying up lawyers on both sides.
"We developed a plan to cover only those things we considered essential," Abrams said, "and we used concise, plain language." It took his team about two months to boil down all the key points into the two-page document, to work it through the business side and translate it into more than 20 languages.
How did they do it? "That was challenging," he concedes. "We wouldn't reuse any preexisting contract clauses. And we had to avoid the common technique in contract drafting of cross-referencing or hyperlinking and incorporating other documents by reference."
Most companies also require a separate "professional services" contract that gives a detailed description of what the company is going to do. But the simplified IBM contract also covers services. And Abrams' team included intellectual property indemnification in the contract—"though most cloud providers do not provide that," he said.
"We learned that using a shorter contract takes a lot less time for the customers—and their lawyers," he explained. "And where there needs to be some negotiation, they can do that faster too."
He said the response has been positive from customers and internal clients, including the IBM sales team. And the International Association for Contract and Commercial Management named the company a finalist for its 2014 Innovation Award for Operational Improvement for "boldly and rapidly transforming its cloud computing contract process."
The success of this novel bit of contract work also earned Abrams something else. When he began the task, he was the head lawyer for software. Now he is an assistant GC assigned to look for ways to transform the client experience, including simplifying more contracts.
His latest project: A four-page contract released a few months ago that covers IBM's entire product line. Such contracts once averaged about 30 pages. This one allows a customer to choose the parts that apply to the product he wants.
The simplified contract was mentioned in the September issue of Fortune magazine during an in-depth profile of CEO Ginni Rometty about significant changes she is making at IBM.
Abrams said his new role is part of a drive for innovation across not only the legal department but all IBM departments. "We [IBM lawyers] are very focused on helping our business satisfy clients and innovate," he said.
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