How COVID Killed the 6-Month Implementation (And Nobody Misses It)

In March 2020, I watched a Fortune 500 company abandon their 18-month CLM implementation and get our platform running in 72 hours. Their entire legal department was suddenly working from home, and they couldn't wait for consultants to fly in and run workshops. They needed contracts flowing immediately.

That moment crystallized something I'd been saying for years: the emperor had no clothes. Those lengthy enterprise implementations weren't adding value--they were theater.

The 20-Year Lesson We Learned in 20 Days

Here's a number that still amazes me: electronic signatures became legal in 2000. It took twenty years--two full decades--for businesses to widely adopt them. Then COVID hit, and suddenly everyone from Fortune 500s to corner bakeries was signing digitally within weeks.

What changed? The artificial barriers disappeared. When you can't meet in person, when your filing cabinets are in an empty office, when your choice is "go digital or stop doing business," you find out very quickly what's actually necessary and what's just habit.

The same thing happened with CLM implementations. Before COVID, the standard enterprise playbook looked like this: hire consultants, run discovery workshops, map every possible edge case, customize everything, train everyone multiple times, and maybe--maybe--go live six to twelve months later.

Then overnight, companies discovered they could skip 90% of that and still get the same result.

The Dirty Secret of Enterprise Software

I've been in enterprise software rooms. I've sat through those six-month implementations. Want to know what really happens during most of that time?

Consultants documenting processes that no one actually follows. IT teams building integrations for systems that three people use. Legal departments insisting on customizations that replicate their broken manual processes in digital form. Training sessions where people learn features they'll never touch because--remember--90% of users only use 20% of any platform's features.

At one telecom company where I worked before starting Concord, we had software that required a two-week training course. Two weeks! You know what happened? People printed out their emails and manually entered data into the system because it was faster than navigating the "properly implemented" solution.

The Great Simplification

Today, more than 90% of contracts on our platform are signed without any negotiation. People realized that for most business agreements, the time spent negotiating standard terms costs more than any theoretical risk those terms might create.

This extends to implementation. Our most successful customers now get running in days, not months. They start with standard templates, use out-of-the-box contract automation software, and add complexity only when they prove they need it.

One mid-market company CFO told me last month: "We implemented your platform faster than we implemented Slack." That's the new bar.

Why No One Wants to Go Back

The companies that compressed their implementations during COVID discovered something important: most of what they thought was "required" was actually just friction.

Those workshops mapping every possible contract scenario? Turns out you can handle 95% of your contracts with five good templates. The complex procurement contract management software with seventeen approval levels? Three levels works fine when you design it right.

But here's the real revelation: simplicity isn't just faster to implement--it's better to use. When our platform is so intuitive that my grandmother could use it (yes, she literally could), you don't need two-week training programs. When your contract process is clean and simple, people actually follow it instead of finding workarounds.

The New Reality

I talk to founders and executives every day who are evaluating CLM solutions. The conversation has completely changed. Five years ago, they'd ask about our implementation methodology, how many consultants we could provide, what our training program looked like.

Now? They ask: "How fast can we get our first contract flowing?" and "Can my team figure this out without training?"

The 6-month implementation is dead because COVID exposed it for what it was: a crutch for badly designed software and a revenue stream for consulting firms. Good software doesn't need six months to implement. It needs to solve real problems in an intuitive way.

What This Means for Your Business

If someone's trying to sell you a 6-month implementation in 2025, run. Here's what to look for instead:

Start simple, scale smart. Get your basic contract flow working first. You can always add complexity later--but you probably won't need to.

Trust your team. If your software needs extensive training, it's the software's fault, not your team's. Modern platforms should be as intuitive as consumer apps.

Value time over customization. Every week of implementation delays is a week of manual processes, missed opportunities, and frustrated employees.

Test before you invest. Any platform worth using should be able to demonstrate value in days, not months.

The pandemic forced us to strip away decades of accumulated complexity and focus on what actually matters: getting contracts signed quickly and accurately. The companies that embrace this simplicity are the ones winning in the new economy.

Those 6-month implementations aren't coming back. And trust me--nobody misses them.

Matt Lhoumeau is the co-founder and CEO of Concord, a contract management platform used by over 1,500 companies worldwide. Before founding Concord, Matt worked with Nicholas Sarkozy during the 2007 French presidential campaign and later for a major telecom company, where his frustration with manual contract management inspired him to transform how businesses handle agreements.

COMTEX_466311562/2891/2025-06-12T12:02:56

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