Conga’s Strategic Pivot: Analyzing the Future of Revenue Lifecycle Management for Enterprise Leaders
In the days of economic uncertainty, the technology cycle demands that enterprises, particularly CTOs, CIOs, and revenue operations leaders, should drive transformative value from existing system investments. As budgets receive increased scrutiny and teams are more stretched thin, technology leaders are looking for ways to unlock efficiencies and capabilities within their organizations.
This quote from Chris Bishop, Chief Customer Officer of Conga, hit home: “Even in times of uncertainty there are always winners!”
Conga Connect (the Conga customer conference in Orlando, Florida, in May 2025) underscored this reality, with conversations about the evolution of revenue lifecycle management (RLM) and the essential need for discovering hidden value, connecting disparate systems and teams, and increasing innovation. This is a summary of Conga’s strategic direction as presented at this conference and its implications for your technological and revenue operations roadmaps.
Conga’s Architectural Vision: An Open, Integrated RLM Ecosystem
Conga is shifting toward an open platform architecture, designed to enhance integration capabilities and provide greater flexibility for enterprise clients. A key component of this strategy is extending its full-featured Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) and Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions beyond its historical Salesforce-centricity, notably with deeper integration with platforms like Microsoft Dynamics. This approach includes providing prepackaged applications built on open components, aiming to deliver both robust user experience and significant architectural flexibility. For CTOs and CIOs, this potentially simplifies integration within diverse enterprise landscapes and offers an alternative to more siloed RLM solutions.
Conga’s Vision for the Future
Image Source: Conga analyst briefing
Key Capabilities and Strategic Alliances
Conga’s roadmap emphasizes rapid feature expansion within its RLM suite. For technology and RevOps leaders, the following announcements from Conga Connect and related briefings are particularly relevant:
Platform and Technology Enhancements
- Embedded RLM Operations: Conga CPQ can now be embedded within host CRM systems, such as Dynamics, enabling sales end-users to manage catalog selection, product configuration, quantity updates, and discounts through a native interface. This minimizes the need to switch between systems and will accelerate the quote-to-cash cycle.
- Unified Process Orchestration: The Conga platform facilitates a connected and automated workflow across the sales and contract lifecycle – from quote and proposal generation to agreement creation and e-signature via Conga Sign – all within a single, cohesive user experience. As this makes it convenient for the front lines, it should drive user adoption and reduce training overhead.
- Open and Flexible Architecture: Conga is re-architecting for a more generalized, standardized, and open framework. This facilitates the development of connectors for a broader range of enterprise ecosystems. Solutions are deployable on Azure or AWS, offering infrastructure flexibility.
- Strategic AI Integration: Conga announced that it is making substantial investments in AI across its core product pillars: Contracts, CPQ, and document automation.
- The CLM now offers AI-driven contract review and risk analysis.
- In CPQ, the roadmap includes AI for configuration recommendations, data-driven pricing suggestions based on historical deal success, and identification of SKU replacements or renewal opportunities.
- AI in document automation will target trend analysis, underlying data insights, and predictive analytics for document execution success. The overarching objective is to deliver “full revenue lifecycle AI.”
Turning Contract Chaos Into Contract Gains
Image Source: Conga analyst briefing
Enhanced Buy-Side CLM Functionality: Grant Peterson, Chief Product Officer at Conga, shared how Conga is expanding the CLM capabilities for buy-side use cases, including dedicated features for supplier management and registration. Direct ERP integrations are also under development, with SAP as an initial target.
Strategic Partnerships
Deepened Salesforce Alliance: Conga’s two-decade partnership with Salesforce continues to evolve. The audience was presented with Conga’s plans to deliver Conga-specific AI experience leveraging Salesforce’s Agent Exchange. This will involve publishing Conga agents for functionalities like redlining, contract risk management, and document automation intelligence, enabling consumption of Conga AI capabilities within the Salesforce ecosystem.
Evidence From the Field: Customer Adoption and Integration Success
Image Source: Shashi Bellamkonda
Showing customers on the main stage at the conference was an excellent strategy, and I was impressed by the caliber of the leaders on stage representing legal, technology, and procurement.
- Boston Scientific: Tim Hazelroth, Director of Pricing, Contracting & Revenue Management, highlighted how integrating Conga (CPQ, CLM, and Apttus/Conga Billing) with their existing systems achieved a unified customer view for quoting and pricing. Using Conga enabled Boston Scientific to transition to a shared services model and support expansion into new product categories like capital equipment.
- NASDAQ: Angela Stewart, VP Corporate Systems, spoke brilliantly about the importance of connected tools and teams in transforming operational friction points into value drivers. NASDAQ leverages Conga CPQ and CLM for sales enablement, revenue operations, and legal use cases, emphasizing the need for a connected data strategy to optimize revenue operations.
- FIS: Pam Phillips, SVP, Senior Deputy General Counsel, pointed to significant efficiency gains from Conga’s CLM tool, in use since 2013, particularly for legal and contract administration teams tasked with “doing more with less.” FIS has also deployed Conga’s discovery AI tool, stressing the value of connecting upstream and downstream processes for holistic revenue cycle management.
All the speakers spoke of the importance of getting all the users on board while implementing highly efficient solutions. Once the frontlines saw the effect of solutions like Conga, these leaders got great feedback on the time saved and processes shortened.
Our Take
Our Perspective: The Path Forward for Conga and Its Clients
Conga’s renewed vision, emphasis on open architecture, and pervasive AI, is a strategically sound response to the evolving demands of enterprise revenue operations. For CTOs and CIOs, the move toward more platform-agnostic solutions and deeper integrations (e.g. Dynamics, enhanced Salesforce AI fabric) is a positive development. The roadmap for “full Revenue Lifecycle AI” is ambitious and, if executed effectively, could deliver substantial differentiation by providing predictive insights and automating complex decision-making across the RLM spectrum.
Implications for Enterprise Technology Leaders
Conga is navigating a period of evolution, partly due to acquisitions and subsequent rebranding initiatives. For CTOs, CIOs, and RevOps leaders, the strategic pivot toward an open, integrated platform, supercharged by a clear AI roadmap, may be the reason to explore Conga and other solutions. Discussions during the conference underscored the critical market need for RLM solutions that can seamlessly integrate into complex enterprise architectures and deliver measurable efficiencies. The commitment to an open framework, with the Microsoft Dynamics integration and the Salesforce Agent Exchange strategy, is a good approach to meeting customers where their data and core processes reside. Platforms that integrate well reduce the friction often associated with deploying and scaling new enterprise applications.
Revenue operations leaders should evaluate Conga’s offerings in the context of their existing technology stack and their strategic goals for process automation and data-driven insights. The expanded focus on buy-side CLM and direct ERP integrations further broadens Conga’s applicability within the enterprise.
Conga must ensure that its platform remains truly open, that its AI capabilities deliver tangible ROI, and that its customer adoption programs effectively support clients in leveraging these advanced features.
The increased focus on brand awareness will also be crucial in communicating these evolving capabilities to the market. For organizations seeking to modernize and unify their revenue lifecycle management, Conga presents a noteworthy option to consider.
This article is based on information presented at the May 2025 Conga Connect conference and briefings held between Conga and Info-Tech Research Group analysts.
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