When I look at how media companies transformed their operations over the past five years, I see a blueprint that every SMB should be studying. These organizations went from paper-heavy, manual workflows to sophisticated digital operations - not because they wanted to, but because they had to. The lessons they learned through fire can save your business years of trial and error.
I've spent the last decade building Concord and working with over 1,500 companies on their digital transformation journeys. What strikes me most is how similar the challenges are across industries. The document chaos that plagued newsrooms - version control nightmares, approval bottlenecks, lost files - mirrors exactly what I see in SMBs every day. The difference? Media companies had no choice but to solve these problems fast.
The Great Media Migration: A Case Study in Forced Innovation
Remember March 2020? While most businesses scrambled to set up Zoom calls, media companies faced an existential challenge: how do you produce a daily newspaper when your entire team is scattered across living rooms and kitchen tables?
The answer wasn't just "go digital" - it was a complete reimagining of how work gets done. Publishers who had operated the same way for decades suddenly had to automate workflows that had always required someone physically walking documents from desk to desk. They had to create approval processes that didn't depend on anyone being in the same building. They had to ensure version control when editors couldn't huddle around the same screen.
What they discovered should make every SMB leader pay attention: the technology to transform your operations already exists. You don't need to build it. You need to implement it strategically.
Three Lessons from the Newsroom for Your Business
1. Start with Your Most Painful Workflow
When I worked at a telecom company before founding Concord, I spent six months manually tracking down contracts in filing cabinets and building a 52-column Excel spreadsheet to manage vendor agreements. It was soul-crushing work that I knew technology should handle. That experience drove me to build better solutions.
Media companies learned this lesson the hard way. Those who tried to digitize everything at once failed. The successful ones picked their most broken process - usually the editorial approval workflow - and fixed that first. One major German publisher, Der Spiegel, started by digitizing just their print production workflow. The time savings were so dramatic that adoption spread organically to other departments.
For SMBs, this might be your contract approval process, your purchase order system, or your employee onboarding. Pick the workflow that causes the most friction and start there. When people see the time savings, they'll champion the next phase of transformation themselves.
2. Embrace Radical Simplicity
Here's something counterintuitive I've learned: the more sophisticated your contract automation software becomes, the simpler it should feel to users. Media companies discovered that their digital tools needed to be so intuitive that a stressed journalist on deadline could use them without thinking.
This principle transformed how publishers approach technology. Instead of feature-rich systems that require extensive training, they opted for tools that mirror familiar experiences. If it works like Google Docs, people already know how to use it. If it requires a manual, it's too complex.
At Concord, we apply this philosophy religiously. We've actually hidden features from new customers because we learned that less is more. You can build all the functionality in the world, but if people can't figure it out in minutes, not hours, adoption will fail.
3. Data Isn't Just for Analysis - It's for Automation
The most profound transformation in media hasn't been the shift from print to digital - it's been the shift from reactive to predictive operations. Publishers now use data not just to understand what happened, but to automate what happens next.
When a story reaches a certain engagement threshold, it automatically gets promoted across channels. When advertising inventory hits specific levels, pricing adjusts dynamically. When deadlines approach, notifications trigger automatically to the right people.
SMBs can apply this same approach to contract management. Instead of manually tracking renewal dates, let the system notify you 90 days in advance. Instead of chasing approvals, automate the routing based on contract value or type. Instead of running reports to find expiring agreements, let your contract analytics software surface insights proactively.
The Hidden Cost of Waiting
Media companies that delayed their digital transformation didn't just fall behind - many disappeared entirely. The same risk exists for SMBs, just on a different timeline. While you might not face extinction tomorrow, every day you operate with manual processes is a day your competitors gain ground.
Consider these realities:
- Your team spends 20-30% of their time on administrative tasks that software could handle
- Version control issues cause an average of 5-10 hours of rework per employee per month
- Manual approval processes add 3-5 days to every transaction cycle
- Lost documents and miscommunication cost thousands in recovered work and missed opportunities
These aren't just inefficiencies - they're competitive disadvantages that compound over time.
Your 90-Day Media-Inspired Transformation
If media companies could transform their century-old processes during a pandemic, your SMB can certainly modernize its operations in calmer times. Here's your playbook:
Days 1-30: Pick Your Battle
- Identify your most painful document-heavy process
- Map the current workflow, including every manual step
- Research solutions that specifically address this workflow
- Get buy-in from the people who'll use the system daily
Days 31-60: Pilot and Refine
- Start with a small group of power users
- Focus on getting the basics right before adding complexity
- Gather feedback obsessively and iterate quickly
- Document early wins to build momentum
Days 61-90: Scale and Automate
- Roll out to broader teams with confidence
- Add automation rules based on real usage patterns
- Connect to other systems to eliminate data silos
- Celebrate the time savings and redirect that energy to growth
The Future Belongs to the Fast
Five years from now, we won't be talking about digital transformation anymore - it will just be how business is done. The question is whether you'll be leading that change or scrambling to catch up.
Media companies didn't have a choice about when to transform. You do. That's both an opportunity and a responsibility. You can learn from their forced innovation without experiencing their pain. You can implement their solutions without their urgency. You can transform at your pace, but you can't afford not to transform at all.
The tools exist. The playbook is proven. The only question is: when will you start?
Matt Lhoumeau is the co-founder and CEO of Concord, a contract management platform trusted by over 1,500 companies. Concord helps SMBs and mid-market companies automate their contract workflows, turning a traditionally painful process into a competitive advantage.
