TermScout, The Contract Rating Company, today launched its data-rich platform analyzing, rating, and comparing the customer agreements used by the top B2B software companies. See the full press release here.
Every year businesses engage in billions of online, click-to-buy software transactions. Each one of these transactions presents the buyer with the dilemma of playing Russian roulette by signing the vendor’s agreement as is or incurring the thousands of dollars and weeks of time required to review and negotiate a more favorable agreement. TermScout eliminates this dilemma by enabling businesses to immediately spot contractual red flags in an agreement and see how that contract compares to “market”. Companies now have transparency in contracting, allowing them to both manage risk more effectively and, when appropriate, get through the contracting process with a simple click of the mouse.
What TermScout Does
TermScout is the world’s first company to systematically review standard vendor IT contracts and provide sellers and buyers with actionable information as to what is “market” for a particular contract and its key terms. For every contract reviewed, TermScout extracts the same 600+ data points and then applies a standard scoring algorithm. This consistent analysis allows TermScout to compare competing vendors’ contracts on an apples-to-apples basis. TermScout then presents that information in a clear fashion that enables users to assess the risks associated with a particular contract in seconds as opposed to hours or days.
The TermScout Product
TermScout’s platform provides users with actionable information at three different levels: the contract, key topics within a contract, and the market terms for that particular category of software (e.g., online survey or CRM software). TermScout presents this information in an easy-to-grasp fashion, with summary data upfront and the ability to double click to see both TermScout’s analysis and the underlying contract language.
Contract Analysis
The first thing that a user sees when searching for a contract is a succinct summary of the key details regarding that contract. This includes:
— Rating: the vendor’s overall favorability rating.
— Potential Issues: the key areas of the contract that buyers should pay most attention to.
— Comparisons: How the vendor’s contract compares to both the best-in-class and set average for the category.
Topic Analysis
Directly below the summary data for a contract, users can see a similar analysis at the key topic area level (i.e., limitations of liability, indemnification, data, etc.). Here, TermScout shows the user:
— Ratings: A measurement of how favorable the specific topic is to the average customer.
— Summary: Summaries of the substantive questions within the topic – a laymens term report on what the contract says.
— Category Breakdown: A comparison of how the ratings for this provision vary among vendors within the category.
–Citations: The actual source language from the contracts in question backing up every statement TermScout makes.
Category Analysis
TermScout provides the user with market-level analysis at all levels for that particular software category. This includes a display of how the overall contract compares to market for that product category, and a display of how individual provisions compare to market.
As always, the user can double click to get information on all vendors in the product category or to see the actual contract language.
What’s Available and What Does It Cost
At launch, the TermScout platform will contain an analysis of the contracts used by over 150 leading software vendors (e.g., Microsoft, AWS, SalesForce, Google, etc.) in 74 product categories (e.g., CRM, Cloud, ERP), with additional contracts and product categories added daily. Click here to see the current list.
To help foster commerce – especially purchases by buyers without legal departments – TermScout currently allows anybody to access the summary data on a contract for free. Companies that wish to dive deeper can purchase either a report on an individual contract or a full subscription to the entire platform. An example of the full range of data available for a product category appears here.
Who Uses TermScout?
TermScout currently is being used by a wide variety of buyers and sellers of IT software. Buyers, ranging from startups to the Fortune 500, use the platform to rapidly determine whether to refer a contract to legal for review and negotiation and then to allow negotiations to home in on the key areas and be resolved quickly. Sellers of all sizes use the platform to efficiently ascertain how their terms compare to those of their competitors at any moment in time. All for a fraction of the cost of engaging a bespoke legal review.
In late February, marketplaces, such as that run by Theorem LTS, will start including TermScout data to allow users looking to make purchases on the marketplace to be able to transact in a more transparent and efficient fashion.
“One of our clients’ top priorities is streamlining the contracting process to allow them to quickly acquire and deploy the products and services their businesses need to thrive. We are excited to announce that Theorem clients will have access to TermScout’s contract analyses and ratings, which we believe will substantially reduce the time needed for purchases made on the Theorem marketplace,” said Joshua Maley, Co-founder and CEO of Theorem LTS.
Companies looking for advice regarding how to make their contracting processes more customer friendly also have access to TermScout-powered solutions through the experts at World Commerce and Contracting, the preeminent association of contract and commercial experts around the globe.
“We are delighted that TermScout is leveraging the World Commerce & Contracting Principles in their contract review software. Organisations around the world are looking to reduce the time it takes to reach agreement and produce more balanced contracts. WorldCC has spent more than 6 years creating standards and contracting principles to support and streamline the drafting and negotiation of contracts. Having these guidelines embedded in leading-edge systems like TermScout is, without doubt, the way to realise the ambition of fairness and balance in the world of contracting.” said Paula Doyle, VP – Global Head of Research and Analytics at WorldCC.
Through April 2, 2021 we’re offering a 20% launch discount using code – ScoutLaunch20 in the checkout.
Please let us know if you would like to learn more about TermScout’s contract-review platform, we’d love to show you around.