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Standardization Is the Quiet Revolution No One’s Talking About

Standardization Is the Quiet Revolution No One’s Talking About

Mid-sized companies are scaling just by getting their contract processes in line.

Todd Steiner
May 08, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Yesterday, a prospect told me their contract process was “mostly standardized.” I asked what that meant. They said, “Well, everyone has their own folder.” I’ve been doing this long enough to know that’s code for chaos.

While everyone’s still distracted by AI, the actual game-changing trend in contract management isn’t sexy or new. It’s standardization. Boring, foundational, unskippable standardization. And it’s the difference between companies that scale and companies that stall.

The Assumption That’s Breaking CLM:
“We’re Already Structured”

A lot of teams think they’re structured because they have templates. Or folders. Or a system someone built five years ago and hasn’t touched since. But structure isn’t where you put contracts. It’s how information flows, how decisions are made, and whether you can run your business off the data inside those documents.

You wouldn’t fix a broken leg with a band-aid, so why use AI to spot missing approval dates instead of fixing the process that causes them? You don’t need more alerts, just a system that makes it impossible to miss those dates in the first place.

What Standardization Actually Looks Like

When I say “standardization,” I mean:

Intake always gathers the same required info (contract type, counterparty name, value, due date, etc.)
Contract types follow defined paths (NDAs go straight to sign, MSAs require legal + finance, etc)
Exceptions are documented and traceable (who approved it, why, and when)
Review stages are predictable and enforced (no skipping steps)
Obligations are tracked automatically after execution (renewals, deliverables, notice periods, etc)

This is the transformation from a wishlist to a functioning CLM foundation. And it’s becoming the new baseline in 2025. Not because analysts said so, but because the companies getting ROI from their tools are the ones that built this groundwork first.

One of our PoseidonCLM clients was floored when they were able to shave their contract cycle time almost in half just by enforcing standardized intake. Without AI, without new hires. Just awareness and clarity in the process.

That’s How Standardization is Gaining Ground Now

But why is standardization catching fire now?

Because mid-sized companies are finally seeing the consequences of skipping it. Here’s what’s hitting:

Cyber insurance renewals are asking for documented third-party risk protocols
Auditors are demanding system-level proof of compliance, not policy PDFs
Investors are poking at operational risk before they fund the next round

And all of those things require structure. If you can’t show how your contract process works without walking someone through five email threads and a spreadsheet, you’ve got a problem.

Even Vanta’s 2024 State of Trust report flagged this: 33% of IT leaders said their biggest blocker to proving security was lack of process clarity, not tooling.

The Hidden Payoff of Standardization

There’s a part that doesn’t get enough airtime, like a secret level that just got unlocked. This whole process of standardization doesn’t just make you audit-ready, it makes you scale-ready.

We have clients showing consistent growth in size in under 18 months. Their intake process? Identical across teams. Review stages? Triggered based on metadata. Contract owners? Assigned automatically. That’s why they didn’t have to triple their legal team or pause onboarding new clients just to “catch up.”

So How Do You Actually Do This?

You don’t need a new tool to standardize. You need discipline. And a few non-negotiables.

Here’s what we recommend before you even touch CLM software:

Define your intake form. What data do you need before a contract hits legal?
Create lifecycle stages. Intake, review, approve, sign, fulfill. Label them.
Assign ownership. Who owns each stage? Who escalates when it’s stuck?
Write down your exceptions. What can be fast-tracked? What can’t?
Automate what’s repeatable. Start with reminders. Then build from there.

If you don’t know where to start, start here: What’s the one contract process you’d trust a new hire to run without screwing it up? Build that one first.

No One Brags About Their Intake Form

You’ll hear a lot of talk this year about AI copilots, smart redlining, and modular plug-ins. And that’s fine. But the companies that are actually scaling? They’re bragging about something else:

Their team isn’t stuck chasing down signatures
Their CFO can pull renewal exposure in 30 seconds
Their new sales reps are closing deals without legal bottlenecks

None of that is magic. It’s structure.

So if you’re still chasing the latest feature list, take a breath. Standardize first. Then scale. You can bolt on AI later. You can polish a dumpster fire all you want, but if your process is stuck, your results are stuck too.