Blockchain Smart Contracts for Efficient Contract Management

Entering in any type of contract with a person or company you haven't met is always challenging. For instance, due to trust issues, people don't become an investor in a company established in a foreign country or agree to lend money to a stranger. Also, it requires a significant investment to set up necessary legal contracts to secure your transactions. As a result, we either don't enter into such a contract or avail services of trusted intermediaries. However, the latter requires substantial settlement fees for providing services. Here, the use of blockchain smart contracts can formalize transactions between people and institutions as well as the assets they own.  

Blockchain Smart Contracts

Blockchain smart contracts provide a solution by formalizing relationships between people and institutions and the assets they own over the Internet. They do it by establishing a P2P system that doesn't require trusted intermediaries. While smart contracts are not new, the use of blockchain acts as the catalyst for smart contract implementation.

Blockchain is a decentralized ledger that follows the principles of a peer-to-peer network. It augments business processes by providing transparency, security, and immutability. All these features can effectively improve various business processes, including contract management solutions as well.

Traditional Contract Management

Businesses use software solutions equipped with tools and techniques to manage the lifecycle of contracts to ensure efficient contract management. A contract management solution manages contracts among employees, partners, and customers to maintain the workflow. Although such contract management solutions prove effective and useful, they provide limited functionality and features when we need to modify, verify, or securely store them.

Businesses see contract processing as one of the key hindrances for smooth operations and processes. With no transparency, efficiencies, and security, coordination for managing different activities becomes challenging, such as authoring, negotiations, renewal, enforcement/execution, and more. These activities become time-consuming and costly because of the involvement of various intermediaries and third-parties. Also, the dependency on various external actors makes these activities vulnerable to hacks while enabling various points of failure.

Blockchain in Action

Blockchain can help change how current contract management solutions work. It can provide businesses a way to master contract management.

Contract processing is a significant challenge for businesses, including authoring, negotiations, renewal, enforcement/execution, and renewal. So, can blockchain contract management solutions change and optimize contract processing? Let's explore.

Use of Smart Contracts

One of the profound applications of blockchain is the smart contract. A smart contract enables network automation and turns paper contracts into robust, immutable, transparent, and efficient digital contracts. We can refer to smart contracts as legal codes that carry the similar legality of a paper contract. For instance, at Oodles, our blockchain smart contract development services can enable smart contract solutions that bring only two parties into play. When both parties agree to the terms of the contract, it is executed, making everything official. As smart contracts are computer codes, they can automate various contract-based processes.

For instance, one party can get a loan from another party, while the smart contract will store the loan amount, the interest rate, and other conditions of the loan. Further, a smart contract can trigger various manual conditional actions. It means, if one party has cleared the loan, the contract will self-close while also informing all the parties involved in the smart contract. It was Etereum that proposed the idea of using smart contracts with second-generation blockchain applications for additional efficiency and transparency.

Blockchain Smart Contract-Based Contract Management | Benefits

No Intermediary or Third-party Dependence 

There is no need for contracts to rely on mediators for their execution with blockchain-powered contract management solutions. They can enable information among the parties regarding the contract, which can be related to a transaction or any part of the contract. Also, they do not put any restriction on the numbers of parties o​_r peers that can communicate with each other. It eliminates waiting time for contracts for processing and. Generally, a contract gets stuck due to the unavailability of either party in traditional settings. With smart contracts powered contract management solutions, the chances of such scenarios are negligible. Additionally, the elimination of intermediaries ensures faster transactions and fewer manipulations.

Verifiable and Accurate

Businesses can use blockchain smart contracts for a verifiable and accurate representation of transactions executed on the network. A contract management solution on the blockchain platform means verifiable and accurate information for all involved parties. Essentially, it provides a full-proof medium to manage all the data and contracts, which involved parties can verify for authenticity. Additionally, blockchain's immutability means that the data is always accurate. Once you have executed the contract, it cannot be modified. However, it can be modified with the right authentication.

Efficient and Cost-saving

Blockchain for CMS can make it more efficient and cost-saving. Blockchain smart contracts can enable automation to save both time and cost related to contract management.

Upgraded Security and Information Reinforcements

Blockchain solutions use cryptography to ensure the security of agreements, the investment, and other key data that should be kept secure. Further, smart contracts offer appropriate security and function well with contract management solutions. It additionally enables engineers to work around the prerequisites and create arrangements that work for the business.

Fast Operations 

Parties need not wait for intermediaries to execute their contracts with blockchain smart contracts for CMS. It is because smart contract solutions involve fool-proof verification procedures. It is due to the fact that blockchain keeps an unalterable, shared record of every other transaction occurring in the network. That being said, previous actions are evidenced and used to validate new ones. It makes the approval process faster and more instant.

Conclusion 

Significantly, the use of blockchain smart contracts for contract management solutions can enable various opportunities as well as optimize the existing ones. The integration of blockchain smart contracts with traditional CMS has the potential to improve the domain drastically. What do you think about both of these emerging technologies for contract management solutions? Let us know in the comments section below.