That’s the average value an enterprise contract loses over its life, according to The ROI of Contracting Excellence, a 2023 study from World Commerce & Contracting and Deloitte. (Deloitte)

Here’s the part that should sting more than the number itself: WorldCC measured this back in 2014 too. The figure then was 9.2%. A decade of eprocurement platforms, CLM software and AI hype later, the average enterprise has closed less than one percentage point of the gap.

It isn’t inevitable. The same research puts top performers at just over 3% erosion, while the worst sit above 20%. That’s not a talent gap, it’s a visibility gap. Most of that 8.6% isn’t fraud. It’s unenforced pricing tiers, missed rebates, quietly expired discounts and terms nobody’s checking against what was actually invoiced. It hides in plain sight. Inside spend that looks completely normal, until someone goes looking months later.

Contracts don’t erode on their own, they erode because nobody’s watching the value in real time.

What would finding your 8.6% do for this year’s margin?

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