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Why We Moved Off Our Custom Contract Database in 2004

Why We Moved Off Our Custom Contract Database in 2004

Swapping control for structure was the smartest thing we did.

Todd Steiner
April 10, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes

In April 2004, I made one of the most pivotal technology decisions in my role as CEO of Trident Contract Management: moving our contract database off a self-managed system and onto the Salesforce platform. At the time, we were a growing company relying on a homegrown setup that had served us well, until it started holding us back. What was fine in the early days caused me to worry about how it would hold up as we scaled. Not because of disk space or physical servers – we could always add those. My concerns ran deeper: Could our ad-hoc system handle more clients? Would it support the automation and structure we’d eventually need? These questions led me to seek a more sustainable solution, and ultimately to embrace Salesforce as our foundation for growth.

Starting Out with a Self-Managed System

When we first started Trident, like many small businesses, we built our own database. It was a simple, self-managed setup. In the beginning, this made perfect sense. We had full control over our data, could tweak the interface on the fly, and didn’t incur extra software costs. The system did its job for a while, helping us track client contracts and key dates. In those early days, “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” felt like a reasonable approach. Our homemade solution wasn’t fancy, but it worked! Until our business started to outgrow it.

Photo by Kevin Ku on Unsplash

Recognizing the Limitations

As Trident took on more clients and increasingly complex portfolios, it became clear our self-managed setup was hitting a ceiling. What had once given us full control was now holding us back from the long-term growth and stability we needed. Some of the key challenges we faced were:

Limited Scalability: The system wasn’t built to handle the scale we were heading toward. As volume grew, performance lagged, and it became clear that throwing more hardware wouldn’t be a cure-all. Scaling would’ve required a significant overhaul to keep up.

Complex Maintenance: We had automation in place, it was becoming more fragile with each enhancement or update we made. Unintended side effects made it necessary to deep dive into the legacy code to make even minor changes. The more we expanded functionality, the more we introduced risks we couldn’t afford.

Reporting and Data Challenges: Because we built the database informally, we lacked a structured framework for inputting and managing data. A mix of schema limitations, inconsistent workflows, and structural differences made reporting and analysis difficult. We also didn’t have a formalized approval or review process built into the tool. As the business matured, we needed clarity and consistency, not workarounds.

Maintenance and Reliability Concerns: Being self-managed meant we were on the hook for everything: backups, bug fixes, security patches, you name it. With a small IT team, this was stressful. Every improvement or update pulled focus away from our core work, and it became clear we were spending too much time maintaining systems rather than building forward momentum.

It became clear that our in-house solution would not carry us into the future. I remember a few late nights going over these issues in my head – not in panic, but in a sober realization that if we didn’t address these gaps, we’d run into a wall. The system that once felt like an asset was starting to feel like a risk.

Searching for a Sustainable Solution

By early 2004, I knew we had to make a change. I began evaluating options for a more scalable, robust platform. One path was to invest in beefing up our own system – essentially hiring developers to add features and improve our internal database. Another path was to adopt an external solution built for scalability. I had to be pragmatic about Trident’s strengths: we are experts in contract management, not in the business of building database software. In making this decision, I kept in mind a core principle I’ve learned over the years: focus on what we do best and leverage technology from those who specialize in it. In fact, others have echoed this sentiment. Unless you’re truly a technology company at heart, “you should almost always buy rather than build” (M Ridley) when it comes to software.

Around that time, I became aware of a fast-growing cloud solution. Salesforce was still primarily known as a customer relationship management (CRM) tool back then, but I was intrigued by its cloud-based approach. The idea of not having to maintain the underlying servers or worry about database performance tuning was appealing. I realized that it could give us scalability and reliability out of the box. We considered other off-the-shelf products too, but many of them were on-premises solutions that didn’t fully solve the maintenance burden issue. Salesforce stood out as a forward-looking option — it was a service built to scale with usage, and it allowed a degree of customization. After careful deliberation, I decided that making the switch was the smartest long-term technology decision for our company.

A Better Foundation

Salesforce also helped solve the real problems we faced with our self-managed system. Several factors made it the right choice as the foundation for our contract management solution:

Scalability and Growth: The cloud infrastructure could scale as we grew, without us having to re-architect our database or purchase new servers. Whether we doubled our client base or expanded our team, we could simply add more users and data into Salesforce without worrying about hitting a wall. This was a huge relief — it meant our growth would no longer be constrained by our software.

Built-in Reliability and Maintenance: By shifting to it, we essentially outsourced the “heavy lifting” of uptime, performance, and updates to a company with far more resources in that area. They handled regular upgrades and optimizations behind the scenes. Instead of spending our time patching database software or troubleshooting server issues, we could focus on serving our clients.

Structured Data Management: Implementing our database in this way also forced us to be more structured and disciplined with our data. We defined clear fields and formats for key information (start dates, renewal dates, values, etc.), and the platform enforced those. This structure meant higher data quality and easier reporting. We could quickly pull insights like “show all contracts up for renewal next quarter” because the data was organized and consistent.

Automation and Workflow Capabilities: One of the immediate benefits we gained was the ability to automate processes. Salesforce had (and continues to have) robust workflow and notification features. We set up rules so that, for example, an email alert or task is automatically generated when a something is 90 days from expiration. The system could prompt us instead of relying on someone’s memory or a manual spreadsheet. This kind of automation was transformative – it reduced mistakes and freed our team to focus on higher-value work instead of tedious tracking.

Security and Permissions: With our old system, controlling who could access or edit certain information was difficult. In our new setup, we could configure user profiles and permissions easily. That meant we could ensure sensitive data was only visible to the right people. This level of access control was important as our staff grew and roles differentiated. It gave me confidence that we could grant broader access without exposing everything to everyone.

Ecosystem and Future Development: Another advantage was the ecosystem. Even in 2004, it was clear that Salesforce was investing in something that others could develop on (the AppExchange would soon launch). By aligning, we positioned ourselves to potentially take advantage of third-party options and integrations down the road (for example, hooking into an e-signature service or advanced analytics). It was a foundation that could evolve with technology, whereas our old system was stagnating.

It’s worth noting that it wasn’t a turnkey solution for us out-of-the-box. We still had to do the work of tailoring it to our needs – creating custom objects for contracts, building page layouts, and so on. But the difference was that we were configuring a scalable process, not reinventing the wheel. We ended up with a robust CLM tool, without having to code the entire infrastructure ourselves. In hindsight, this approach gave us the best of both worlds: a system custom-fit for our business, built atop a rock-solid foundation.

Privacy and Security: Serious Considerations

One thing I treated very seriously during this transition was the privacy and security of our clients’ data. Moving from an in-house server to a cloud platform raised valid questions: Would our data be safe? Could we trust an external company with sensitive information about our vendors and contracts? These weren’t questions I took lightly. We did our due diligence, we reviewed Salesforce’s security certifications, encryption practices, and commitments to data protection.

What I realized was that a company like Salesforce was likely to handle security better than we ever could on our own. They had teams dedicated to platform security, regular third-party audits, and infrastructure built with redundancy and disaster recovery in mind. In contrast, our self-managed server was potentially more vulnerable simply because we had limited time and resources to put towards hardening it. By making the move, we improved our security stance in many ways: data was stored in professionally maintained data centers, we gained features like two-factor authentication for logins, and we no longer had a single point of failure sitting in our office.

Privacy was similarly addressed through robust access controls. We configured roles so that each user on our team could only see the data relevant to their job. The system’s built-in audit trails and field history tracking gave us transparency into who was viewing or changing information. This level of control helped me sleep easier at night. There were no sensational horror stories here, just a sober assessment that protecting data is a fundamental part of doing business, and our new platform needed to meet that bar. I’m happy to say it did. In the years since, we’ve never had a serious security incident involving client contract data, and that track record is thanks in part to the solid security foundations of the platform we chose.

Reflections on Long-Term Success

Now, looking back over the past two decades, I’m grateful we made that when we did. At the time, it felt like a bold move, putting our critical data in “the cloud” was still an emerging idea in 2004. But ultimately it was a pragmatic choice, born out of the desire to build a sustainable business with an eye on the future. By removing the limitations of our self-managed solution, we unlocked our ability to grow. Trident went from a small operation with a few dozen clients to a thriving business, and we never had to worry whether our system could handle it. The foundation scaled right alongside our company.

Equally important, the decision shaped how we approach technology and process even today. It cemented in our culture the value of long-term thinking. We learned that investing in scalable infrastructure (even if it meant a tough transition) pays off immensely down the road.

It’s easy to stick with what you know, or to patch up an old system and hope it holds. But sometimes, as in our case, the better path is to step back and adopt a solution that can grow with you. That move in 2004 allowed us to focus on our core mission, excellent contract management services, without getting bogged down by IT headaches.

I remain a humble student of what it takes to build a sustainable company. This was one of my early lessons in making smart technology decisions. The experience taught me that as a leader, you must be willing to make a change when the status quo isn’t tenable for the long haul. For us, Salesforce provided the structured, secure, and scalable environment we needed. It ensured that our operations had a strong backbone. In the end, it set Trident on a course that could support our ambitions for years to come. And that is a move I’ve never regretted.