The Contract Intelligence Gap

What PwC's 2026 Global Digital Procurement Survey Reveals About the Next Wave of CLM Value

Most procurement organizations have a CLM. Almost none are using it the way the market is about to demand.

What the data reveals:

  • 70% of procurement organizations are still in early-stage adoption for contract management, the highest of any use case measured in the survey
  • Risk management has overtaken efficiency as the top justification for CLM investment, alongside S2P integration and obligation management
  • Only 1% of respondents lack a CLM solution entirely, the conversation has shifted from whether to adopt CLM to how to get more from it
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Whats inside:

The gap is in the systems that execute contracts. Sourcing platforms, ERP, accounts payable: none of them are consistently checking whether what's happening matches what was agreed.  

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Only 36% of organizations automatically link sourcing awards to contract terms. 35% say POs are only partially enforced against underlying contracts. 49% describe their invoice-to-contract validation as partial at best.

The shift from legal to procurement — and what it demands 81% of organizations have moved more contract authority toward procurement in the past two years. 93% of companies over $5B in revenue have done so. That authority brings new accountability — and new infrastructure requirements.