If you’re anything like me, now the Olympics are well and truly underway, you’ll be glued to the screen at odd hours of the day and night, entranced by sports you’ve never had any previous interest in – fencing, badminton, table tennis, beach volleyball – just take your pick.
Highs and lows
The opening ceremony of Paris 2024 was a metaphor for the Olympics themselves – with the extreme highs and random lows which mark out any extended sporting event. (Plus your geographical knowledge probably increased a little as boats filled with athletes from countries you’d never previously heard of sailed down the Seine.) Still, it’s like no other event – a joyous celebration of human (and equine) endeavour which transcends comprehension of most mere mortals. Seeing what the human body is capable of doing – diving (Tom Daley) and gymnastics (Simone Biles) come immediately to mind – can be quite mind-blowing. To say nothing of Andy Murray’s tenacity – his days are ultimately numbered and although we’ll miss him, maybe we won’t miss the stress of watching him play.
There’s just so much joy at seeing physical endeavour and emotional outpourings come together. After Wimbledon and Euro 2024 what a summer of sport we’re having. And how simply wonderful to have such positivity to tune into day after day at a time of such global uncertainty and strife.
And now the Olympics stretch out before us. Every day serves up a smorgasbord of sport and its quite frankly inspirational. Once the event ends there’s still a lot of summer – I use the term loosely – to go. And the pitches and the tennis courts and the gyms will be fuller than usual – for a little while at least. And some of the athletes of the future will be born.
For most athletes, in the run up to a huge event, time has little meaning. Of course, routine plays an enormous part in everything that they do but they can’t simply switch off before and after a set period of time. 9-5 just doesn’t come into it. In truth, for many of us our working lives leach into our personal time – commitment to the job in hand is to be lauded of course, but who on their deathbed ever said they wished they’d spent longer in the office?
Focus on high value
Any tools, practices or protocols we can employ to optimise our working days are invaluable. Even if we’re not in search of a better work life balance, it’s becoming increasingly important to leverage the best that technology has to offer to shoulder the burden of low value tasks. Automation has long been a key feature of most software packages, but such is the increasing sophistication of today’s AI that it’s almost impossible to know where it will take us.
That said, we can certainly harness what’s available to us today in terms of software to relieve us of the drudgery of manual tasks. It’s not just a question of taking boredom out of the equation either – if software can take on the low value tasks we can focus on the high value tasks. Good for us and good for business.
Hero investment
This is where contract management software can become a hero investment. By optimising the contract process it can reduce human error, keep us compliant and put the focus firmly on the business in hand.
Contract Insight is an award-winning, widely trusted contract lifecycle management software solution, which has helped thousands of organisations from a vast array of industries within both the public and private sectors to optimise the contract process, boost revenue, promote productivity, centralise CLM processes, and reap the most value from contracts.
To learn how to more easily draft contracts, get contracts reviewed, collaborate on negotiations, and much more to improve contract management processes, book a free demo of Contract Insight® contract management and eProcurement software today!
Contact John O’Brien, CEO at Four Business Solutions – global business consultants and software integrators specialising in business process improvement.