A Major US Airline Unifies 10,000 Contracts and Drives Complete User Adoption with Leah CLM
A major US airline faced a contract management crisis that threatened operational efficiency across its expanding supply chain operations. Their legacy CLM system, implemented between 2015 and 2018, had become a rigid bottleneck that actively worked against the organization. Development costs for even simple changes reached thousands of dollars, forcing the company to leave the system unchanged for years. Users found the platform so difficult to navigate that they abandoned it entirely, storing contracts on desktops, in Teams channels, and across various repositories—anywhere but the official system.
Contract records scattered across desktops, Teams, and multiple repositories requiring extensive cleanup
System updates since 2018 implementation due to prohibitively high development costs
Additional a regional airline subsidiary contracts requiring strategic system consolidation
“We made the strategic decision to discontinue DocuSign CLM entirely. For the contracts piece, we're remaining with Leah as our platform of choice.”
Manager of Contracts and Compliance
Challenge
A major US airline faced a contract management crisis that threatened operational efficiency across its expanding supply chain operations. Their legacy CLM system, implemented between 2015 and 2018, had become a rigid bottleneck that actively worked against the organization. Development costs for even simple changes reached thousands of dollars, forcing the company to leave the system unchanged for years. Users found the platform so difficult to navigate that they abandoned it entirely, storing contracts on desktops, in Teams channels, and across various repositories—anywhere but the official system.
The contract repository chaos reflected deeper operational problems. Approximately 10,000 contract records existed across fragmented systems with inconsistent naming conventions, creating a data quality nightmare. Manual Excel-based tracking and redundant email-based approval workflows consumed valuable time while providing minimal visibility. The system's rigid workflow structure forced unnecessary approvals and created stopgaps that slowed contract execution. Searchability was essentially nonexistent, and reporting capabilities were almost entirely absent, leaving procurement teams operating blind.
The a regional airline subsidiary acquisition dramatically escalated these challenges. Hawaiian operated its own contract management on DocuSign CLM with roughly 5,000-10,000 additional contracts that would need integration. The airline faced a strategic decision: maintain dual platforms with separate user bases and processes, or consolidate onto a single system that could scale with the merged organization. With international expansion driving new routes to Japan, China, and Mexico, regulatory compliance requirements added complexity—including mandatory Spanish-language contracts and emerging Japanese contract needs. The company needed a solution that could handle enterprise-scale transformation while supporting 40% team growth and seamless operational integration during a critical merger period.
Solution Search
a regional airline subsidiary selected Leah CLM for its no-code flexibility and enterprise scalability that directly addressed their rigid legacy system limitations. Unlike their previous platform that required expensive developer intervention for even minor changes, Leah no-code architecture enables business users to modify workflows, add fields, and adapt processes without technical resources or development costs. This flexibility proved essential for managing organizational changes, including the a regional airline subsidiary acquisition integration, without incurring thousands of dollars for simple system adjustments.
The platform's AI-powered search and extraction capabilities transformed contract discovery from essentially nonexistent to instant and intuitive. Cognitive search functionality allows users to locate contracts and extract key terms without manual review, while automated executive summaries provide quick contract insights without reading entire documents. The pre-built workflow templates offered customizable approval processes that eliminated the rigid, over-engineered structures of their previous system while maintaining appropriate controls.
Enterprise integration capabilities provided critical connectivity across Alaska's technology ecosystem. Native PeopleSoft integration ensured supplier data consistency between contract management and financial systems, addressing the mapping friction between legal entity names and remit-to addresses. DocuSign integration streamlined electronic signature workflows, while the platform's API architecture positioned the airline for broader procure-to-pay automation as part of their comprehensive digital transformation. The translation capabilities demonstrated speed and simplicity for handling international regulatory requirements, supporting contracts in Spanish, Japanese, and other languages required for expanding global routes.
“The training experience has been exceptional—people have been able to pick up the system really quickly, and our approvers have seamlessly adopted the new workflow. The user interface represents a huge improvement from our previous systems.”
Manager of Contracts and Compliance
Implementation
The airline approached deployment with a pragmatic, phased strategy focused on data quality first. The team invested nearly a year in extensive data cleanup and standardization before migration, reducing approximately 10,000 scattered contract records to 2,000 clean, active contracts worthy of migration to the new centralized repository. This substantial cleanup effort established a solid foundation for the new system and eliminated the legacy data chaos that had plagued previous implementations.
Leah implementation approach emphasized partnership and knowledge transfer. Weekly configuration sessions enabled the airline's team to build internal expertise while maintaining momentum through the project timeline. The vendor provided hands-on training focused on practical system usage rather than theoretical features, enabling rapid user adoption. Despite resource constraints—including losing a team member mid-implementation and the contracts manager handling 80% of implementation work herself—the project achieved go-live within planned timelines.
PeopleSoft integration required careful coordination to ensure supplier data accuracy between systems. The team established nightly data pulls that kept contract management synchronized with financial records, addressing the mapping challenges between legal entity names and payment addresses. DocuSign integration followed smoothly, providing electronic signature capabilities that complemented the core contract management workflows.
Early wins validated the approach and built organizational confidence. The user-friendly interface immediately drew positive feedback compared to the abandoned legacy system. Training sessions demonstrated that team members could pick up the platform quickly, a stark contrast to previous implementation struggles. Approvers seamlessly adopted new workflows without the friction that typically accompanies system changes. These visible successes during the initial phases created momentum for broader organizational adoption and positioned the platform for the a regional airline subsidiary integration challenges ahead.
Outcome
a regional airline subsidiary achieved complete user adoption with zero complaints reaching executive leadership—a remarkable turnaround from their previous system's total abandonment. The transformation established a true single source of truth for contracts, eliminating the fragmented desktop and Teams storage that had created operational chaos. Users consistently report positive experiences with the platform's interface and functionality, with both end users and power users actively advocating to maintain Leah despite competitive pressure from other enterprise suite vendors.
The no-code flexibility delivered immediate cost advantages by eliminating expensive development fees for system changes. Where the legacy platform required thousands of dollars for simple modifications, business users now adapt workflows and processes themselves without technical intervention. This capability proved essential during the Hawaiian acquisition integration, enabling the airline to onboard 5,000-10,000 additional contracts without incurring development costs that would have been prohibitive with their previous system.
The platform successfully supported strategic acquisition integration that positioned Alaska for unified operations. Rather than maintaining dual contract management systems following the a regional airline subsidiary merger, the airline consolidated entirely onto Leah. This decisive system standardization simplified operations, reduced licensing costs, and created consistent processes across the merged organization. The migration planning targeted March-April 2025 completion, supporting the broader goal of achieving a single operating certificate by August-October.
Operational efficiency improvements transformed daily contract management. Rapid user training replaced the lengthy learning curves of previous implementations, with team members picking up the system quickly and approvers seamlessly adopting new workflows. AI-powered search eliminated manual contract hunting across fragmented repositories, while automated reporting capabilities began replacing manual Excel-based processes that had consumed significant administrative time.
International expansion received critical enablement through demonstrated translation capabilities. As Alaska added routes to Japan, China, Mexico, and other destinations, regulatory compliance required contracts in multiple languages including Spanish and Japanese. The platform's translation functionality provided the speed and simplicity needed to support these compliance requirements without manual translation overhead or expensive third-party services.
The successful implementation positioned Alaska for continued digital transformation as part of their broader procure-to-pay ecosystem development. With Leah serving as the contract lifecycle management foundation, the airline is pursuing deeper integration with Oracle's procurement platform while maintaining the CLM flexibility and user satisfaction that drove the original selection.
