In this episode, Marc and Pepe are still at CLOC and talking with the best in business. Today, we had the pleasure of chatting with Tiffany Hamilton, the Director of Legal Innovation, Analytics, and Technology at DHL Supply Chains. Tiffany’s been with DHL for over eight years, and she’s seen it all—especially when it comes to legal operations.
She took us through her journey, shared the challenges she faced, and gave us a peek into how DHL is shaking things up with AI and smarter contract management. Specifically, Tiffany is working with replacing a legacy contract management system with a new one, and building AI capabilities into their new system.
Getting to Know Tiffany
Tiffany kicked off the conversation by giving us a bit of background on her role at DHL. She’s been the driving force behind their legal innovation for nearly a decade. What started as a one-woman show has now blossomed into a full-fledged department, thanks to her strategic vision and hard work.
Beginning with identifying areas doing legal ops work, but not considered a legal ops resource, , she focused on making sure that the right people were working on the right things. Now, her team handles everything from contract administration and knowledge management to vendor and spend management, plus resource management. Essentially, if it has to do with legal ops at DHL, Tiffany’s team has a hand in it.
The Battle with a Legacy CLM System
Now, no journey is without its bumps, and Tiffany’s definitely had her share. She walked us through the struggles with DHL’s old Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) system. This legacy system was built in-house and was supposed to be a one-stop shop for all things contract-related. But as time went on, it became clear that it wasn’t living up to its promise. Tiffany described how they eventually decided it was time for a change.
She identified one of the biggest lessons, as the need to listen to the stakeholders. Their feedback was crucial in identifying the system’s shortcomings and setting the stage for the migration to a new solution. Stakeholder feedback was necessary not online in getting their input on what needed to be fixed in terms of pain points, but also in order to obtain their buy-in for a new CLM system.
And let’s not forget the need to review the data in the system—a task that was anything but fun. Tiffany admitted that it was a bit of a mess at first, but it was a necessary evil. After all, you can’t build a solid foundation on shaky ground, and accurate data is the bedrock of any successful system migration. Looking at those pain points, and then identifying what needs to be cleaned, what was being consistently used, and then finally having to make decisions about what should be let go, either because it was being tracked somewhere else, or because it just wasn’t relevant to the business.
Working with a Vendor
In this part of the interview, Tiffany reflects on the early stages of transitioning to a new contract management system. She acknowledges that the process was initially a bit chaotic, but once her team had a clear understanding of which data to keep and which to discard, it became easier to involve the right people in confirming the accuracy of the data. Tiffany also mentions that they relied heavily on their vendor to help clean up the data, ensuring it was in a good state for migration into the new system.
She highlights that implementing AI is not as simple as some might think—it’s not just a plug-and-play solution. For AI to work effectively, the data must be clean and well-organized. Once that’s in place, they can start building accurate models. Tiffany explains that their approach involves having a repository with an AI component layered on top. They’ve also implemented an intake solution as the front end, where incoming requests are processed through workflows that feed into the AI. This AI helps draft agreements and extract key data points from finalized contracts, which are then stored in the repository.
Bringing AI into the Mix
In this segment of the interview, Tiffany explains how their new system integrates AI to streamline legal operations. They’ve set up a repository with an AI layer and an intake solution at the front end to handle incoming requests. These requests are processed through workflows that guide them into the AI system, which assists in drafting agreements and extracting key data points from finalized contracts. The extracted data and documents are then stored in the repository.
Importantly, Tiffany notes that there is always human oversight at each step to ensure accuracy, although the process is much less manual than before. Tiffany made it clear that while the AI does a lot of the heavy lifting, it’s always reviewed by a person before anything is finalized. This has cut down on the manual work big time, making everything way more efficient, but without the need to sacrifice quality.
Lessons Learned and What’s Next
As we wrapped up the conversation, Tiffany shared some of the key lessons she’s learned throughout this process. First and foremost: know your data. Understanding how data is produced, who touches it, and what happens to it at each stage is crucial. She also talked about the importance of getting buy-in from all stakeholders when making changes to how data is captured. If you don’t, you might end up with some pretty big headaches down the road.
Another big takeaway? Adoption is everything. You can pour tons of resources into building the best system in the world, but if the main users aren’t on board, it’s all for nothing. Tiffany stressed the importance of making sure the end-users are involved at every step, especially identifying pain points. Then, the end users need to have buy-in so they actually use the system, which is a critical part of any successful implementation.
Wrapping It Up: Connect with Tiffany
Before we said our goodbyes, Tiffany shared how you can get in touch with her. Whether you’re interested in legal ops or contract management, Tiffany’s open to conversations. You can find her on LinkedIn, or catch her at various conferences, especially CLOC, where she’s always up for a chat. Our hosts wrapped things up by thanking Tiffany for sharing her insights and reminded everyone that this episode was sponsored by Koho Consulting. They’re the folks who help companies find, implement, and manage their CLM tools, whether they’re buying or selling.
So, if you’re into legal ops, or just curious about how big companies like DHL are using AI to get ahead, this episode is packed with valuable insights. Tiffany’s journey shows just how powerful it can be when you combine strategic thinking with cutting-edge technology.
