Contracts are a composition of atomic pieces. Those pieces may link to each other.
A list of parties.
Concrete snippets of quantitative data like “$5,000” and “quarterly”.
Molecules of data that form from the atoms, like combining “$5,000” and “quarterly” to get “Annual Fee: $20,000”.
Individual clauses that refer to each other, or even to laws and regulations outside the contract.
All of this implicit structure goes much further than what you see in many other types of document.
When you make that structure explicit by storing it atomically in a database rather than as wall of text in Word or PDF, everything becomes permutable. Like using Lego blocks instead of a single lump of plastic.
That makes answering any question about any information across any subset of contracts much easier. For example:
"Show me all still-active customer contracts commencing before 2017 where the liability exclusions deviate from our standard terms and the cap on liability exceeds $5M".
Piece of cake.