From improved operational efficiency to cost optimization to human empowerment, digital transformation comes with many advantages – and those that don’t adapt to the evolving technology landscape risk getting left behind.
As business technology evolves, organizations must take inventory of how they can most fully embrace those new technologies. This applies to legal professionals and contract managers throughout the contract lifecycle. Contract management professionals need to evolve their digital transformation goals as time passes, and legal technology grants them more efficiency, incredible innovation, and significant returns on investment. To that end, here are six digital transformation goals for contract managers in 2025, to help them improve customer experiences, client relations, business outcomes, and more as they pursue their digital transformation journey.
What Are the Goals of Digital Transformation?
While digital transformation initiatives integrate technology into a broad spectrum of business processes, digital transformation goals are an organization’s long-term, specific objectives in this pursuit. Cross-functional digital transformation goals often include:
- Operational efficiency.
- Human empowerment.
- Data-driven insights.
- Competitive advantages.
- Cost optimization.
- Agility and adaptability.
Let’s look at how this digital transformation strategy applies to contract managers.
1. Operational Efficiency
Improving efficiency is essential in contract lifecycle management because it allows contract managers to streamline the eight stages of the contract lifecycle, minimize errors, and reduce costs associated with contract management bottlenecks. It is one of the key objectives of digital transformation.
One way to streamline operational efficiency is to maintain a secure contract repository. Efficiency is gained immediately via the ability to search for all contracts, data and related attachments within a single source of truth. Saved searches, search history and “Did you mean …?” functionality make it even easier to search for contracts, data and files down to the phrase, term and even word level.
Another facet of contract management software that promotes operational efficiency is the ability to extract key metadata from contracts in an automated fashion. Key dates, company information, and clauses can be extracted from contracts and mapped onto a tidy contract record screen. These fields can be leveraged for workflows and easily searched. What’s more, dynamic templates can be merged with clauses and key metadata to automate the creation of a contract document.
2. Human Empowerment
To empower employees, contract administrators and decision-makers should give them the power to better negotiate terms, make decisions and take ownership of contracts.
For this digital transformation goal, we recommend providing the necessarytraining and support to effectively manage complex and voluminous contracts with legal technology, fostering a sense of responsibility and ownership. Be sure to choose a provider that offers training events, optimization resources, conferences, a wiki, and more so that employees can genuinely master taking the reins when leveraging digital technology for contract management.
Human empowerment is among the main digital transformation goals, because the human experience is part of the reason that we implement digital technologies to begin with.
3. Data-Driven Insights
Data-driven insights allow contract managers to make informed decisions based on evidence, leading to better risk mitigation, negotiation strategies and contract performance.
We recommend a few strategies here for data analytics:
- Leverage generative AI (artificial intelligence) wiwith machine learning to automatically create clear and concise clauses, analyze risk
,and present positive, negative,or neutral aspects of contract sentiment for both sides. - Utilize executive graphical dashboards for visually engaging contract analytics at a glance – such as contract amounts, spending, key performance indicators and open tasks across the contract repository.
- Use a custom report designer to present data-driven insights designed in the way contract managers prefer.
With data-driven insights, which is another one of the critical digital transformation goals, your team can make decisions based on what’s actually happening within your contract database.
4. Competitive Advantages
Competitive advantage is one of the key digital transformation goals because it allows contract managers to leverage contracts to gain a leg up on competitors by streamlining contract execution and performance, reducing risks, and optimizing costs.
We recommend leveraging AI-powered contract management software for a competitive advantage. It automates repetitive tasks that competitors using manual processes will be hung up on. Additionally, contract managers have data-driven insight for consistent process improvements that competitors using manual processes will miss out on. Furthermore, competitors relying on manual processes may overlook risk factors that contract lifecycle management (CLM) software can nip the bud.
5. Cost Optimization
Cost optimization is one of the critical digital transformation goals because it allows businesses to pinpoint and reduce unnecessary expenses by carefully reviewing and negotiating contract terms, minimizing risk-associated spending, and improving resource allocation to reduce wasteful expenditure across all contracts.
Digital transformation with contract management software helps with cost optimization and revenue growth in several ways.
- Improved compliance management reduces the costs associated with noncompliance and failure to observe regulations.
- Intelligent workflow automation with task alerts, notifications and escalation capabilities virtually ensures that deadlines are not missed, obligations are met and money is saved.
- Data-driven insights into single contracts and the entire repository allow users to leverage historical data and identify high-spending areas while negotiating better deals with counterparties.
- Proactive renewal reminders allow users to renegotiate better terms promptly.
- Risk assessment tools allow users to avoid costly risk exposure and risk events.
- Budget and financial reporting tools empower users to gain a holistic oversight of spending.
We recommend optimizing costs with CLM software.
6. Agility and Adaptability
Agility and adaptability are among the most critical digital transformation goals. They allow organizations to evolve contract management without costly and time-consuming interruptions and learning curves. Investments in CLM technologies that help drive organizational success should include features that integrate with legacy solutions while also having the ability to add innovative technologies as they develop and improve. A contract manager should also have a comprehensive system that can be configured to their organizational needs even as they change and grow. As a contract management software solution, CobbleStone Software® embraces its position as a leader in CLM according to analyst reports like QKS’s SPARK MatrixTM report and The Hackett Group’s Digital World Class MatrixTM. If you are looking for an agile and adaptable legal technology solution, we recommend CobbleStone Contract Insight®.
Data-driven insights allow contract managers to make informed decisions based on evidence, leading to better risk mitigation, negotiation strategies and contract performance.
CobbleStone® regularly shows its adaptability to industry demands, such as with its future-minded generative AI and the release of new features and enhancements throughout the year. Its users can take full advantage of features like auto-extract and intelligent workflows, electronic approvals and e-signatures, dynamic templates and clauses, online negotiations and compliance monitory and many others. users can also take advantage of a lengthy list of compatible integrations, including legacy data migration as well as planning for the adoption of future technologies. CobbleStone adapts and improves its solutions incrementally to provide ample resources that prevent users from getting overwhelmed or falling behind as legal tech advances.
Additionally, thanks to CobbleStone’s various trainings, resources and conferences, you can rest easy knowing you have a partner who is committed to the agile and seamless adoption of new features and enhancements for better contract lifestyle management.
To learn more about meeting and exceeding your digital transformation efforts with CobbleStone, book a free demo today.