BPM doubles contract review capacity without additional resources

The challenge

When it comes to procurement, BPM is in a unique position, where a two-person team manages vendor relationships for the company’s internal operations and for clients who rely on them for outsourced IT and other services. When Lilia Alfaro joined BPM as the Senior Manager of Procurement, there was no formal procurement function. She built the processes from scratch and has scaled it to support an organization of over 1,300 people.

Unfortunately, the work the team did was often manual and tedious. Contracts lived in email threads and spreadsheets, with no single source of truth. With roughly 500 agreements under management, Lilia estimates she was spending close to half of every workday just finding documents. “I was spending a lot of time asking, ‘Where is this contract?’ And then once we had it, we had to ask about the DPA or order form.” 

Professional services are also tricky because often people may leave the firm after a short time period. “Sometimes the person who knew where everything lived had already left the company,” Lillia adds.

Redlines happened over email, making it nearly impossible to track which version was current. BPM’s internal legal counsel was working nights to keep up, eventually handing the work off to outside resources, turning 40+ weekly hours into a recurring external bill. 

Missed renewals added to the pressure, resulting in an estimated $100,000 in spend on contracts for products no one was using.

The solution

BPM had been using Zip for intake before Lilia expanded into AI Contract Orchestration. When she evaluated other CLM tools, the complexity was a non-starter. “You still had to download it, save it, and reload it again. It wasn’t going to work for us,” she shared. AI Contract Orchestration was built directly into the workflow her team already used.

One of the first things Lilia built was a custom clause library configured by geography and subsidiary. Now the right language surfaces automatically, and when her external attorney reviews a contract, missing or noncompliant clauses are flagged immediately. “She just puts it through and everything that’s missing is right there,” Lillia says. “She just worries about adjusting the language.” A recent deal involving 18 contract attachments was turned around in roughly three hours.

BPM is also using Zip’s AI Agents to strengthen the process: a compliance documentation agent ensures all required vendor forms are collected before a contract moves forward, and a price negotiation agent gives the team market benchmarks heading into renewals. “It gives you insight into how you measure against other companies, and how other teams are negotiating,” says Lillia. “That’s powerful to have going into a renewal.”

The result

With Zip’s AI Contract Orchestration, the most striking outcome has been in legal hours. External contract review now takes between 10 and 25 hours per month, down from 40+ hours per week — a reduction of roughly 90%. “Before, my attorney was working until nighttime,” Lillia shares. “Now it’s 10 to 25 hours a month max. And that’s for everything.” The team also identified unused licenses and negotiated stronger supplier terms, driving measurable supplier cost savings.

Beyond legal, the entire review workflow has changed. Procurement flags issues, infosec adds comments, and legal picks up with full context, all inside a single Zip request. BPM’s CISO, CFO, and legal team are among the tool’s biggest advocates. “Anybody I ask says they love it,” Lilia says.

Renewal management has also improved. BPM’s team now reviews contracts proactively, giving Lilia the window to negotiate better terms and build in protective clauses, including early termination provisions that have already helped BPM exit one unfavorable contract ahead of schedule. “We’re able to review contracts before renewal time, not just sign whatever comes through,” she adds. 

Ultimately, Zip as whole has provided a level of compliance and trust that has enabled the procurement function to focus on strategic value-add work. “When it comes to what Zip provides, it’s peace of mind,” Lillia shares. “If something went through Zip, we know it was reviewed, and all the proper steps were taken.