[EDRM Editor’s Note: This article was first published here on October 18, 2025, and EDRM is grateful to Rob Robinson, editor and managing director of Trusted Partner ComplexDiscovery, for permission to republish. All images in the article are courtesy of Rob Robinson.]

ComplexDiscovery Editor’s Note: The following analysis employs strategic frameworks drawn from military theorists Carl von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu to examine the eDiscovery procurement landscape. This analytical approach is not intended to equate the gravity of warfare with business procurement decisions, nor to trivialize the profound human consequences of military conflict. Rather, it recognizes that these classical strategic writings—which have influenced fields from business strategy to game theory—offer useful conceptual tools for understanding complex competitive environments characterized by uncertainty, resource constraints, and the need for careful planning.

The military analogies used throughout this piece serve as an intellectual framework for examining strategic decision-making in conditions of imperfect information. Concepts such as “friction” (the gap between plans and execution), “center of gravity” (identifying critical capabilities), and “intelligence gathering” (systematic information collection) have found application across numerous civilian disciplines. By applying these time-tested strategic principles to eDiscovery procurement, we aim to provide readers with a fresh perspective on familiar challenges while acknowledging the vast difference in stakes between military operations and business decisions.

We trust readers will engage with these strategic parallels in the spirit intended—as analytical tools that illuminate the complexity of modern eDiscovery procurement rather than as literal comparisons between fundamentally different human endeavors.

In the opening chapters of Carl von Clausewitz’s seminal work On War, the Prussian military theorist describes friction as “the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper.” Two centuries later, legal and technology professionals navigating the eDiscovery marketplace encounter their own fog of uncertainty—where vendor capabilities blur, pricing structures mystify, and strategic decisions carry consequences that ripple through litigation outcomes, budget allocations, and organizational reputations. Like commanders planning campaigns, both buyers and providers of eDiscovery services must contend with information asymmetry, resource constraints, competitive pressures, and the fundamental challenge of achieving their objectives in an environment characterized by complexity and rapid change.​

The global eDiscovery market, valued at approximately $16.89 billion in 2024 and projected to reach $25.11 billion by 2029, represents not merely a technology sector but a strategic battleground where ancient principles of warfare find surprising relevance. Sun Tzu’s assertion that “all warfare is based on deception” and Clausewitz’s concept of the “center of gravity” offer frameworks for understanding the purchasing dynamics that shape this market—frameworks that illuminate both the tactical considerations of individual procurement decisions and the broader strategic imperatives that determine long-term success.​

The Buyer’s Campaign: Intelligence, Terrain, and the Center of Gravity

Sun Tzu’s first principle—”know yourself and know your enemy”—establishes the foundation for effective eDiscovery procurement. Before organizations can evaluate vendors, they must conduct rigorous internal reconnaissance, assessing their own capabilities, limitations, and strategic requirements. This self-knowledge extends beyond simple feature checklists to encompass organizational eDiscovery maturity, existing resource gaps, pain points, and anticipated future needs.​

The most successful procurement strategies begin with what military strategists call terrain analysis. In eDiscovery, this terrain comprises the organization’s data landscape, litigation profile, regulatory exposure, internal capabilities, and budgetary constraints. Organizations must evaluate whether they possess the internal resources to manage certain eDiscovery functions in-house or whether outsourcing provides strategic advantages. This assessment parallels Clausewitz’s emphasis on understanding the “theater of war”—the geographical and political context that shapes military operations.​

Identifying the Center of Gravity

Clausewitz defined the center of gravity as “the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends.” For eDiscovery buyers, identifying the center of gravity in vendor selection requires understanding which capabilities are truly critical to organizational success versus which represent peripheral enhancements. Is the center of gravity advanced AI-powered analytics that can dramatically reduce review costs? Robust security measures that protect sensitive client data? Scalability to handle massive data volumes during peak litigation periods? Or perhaps the quality and responsiveness of human expertise that guides technology deployment?​

Industry observations consistently reveal that eDiscovery buyers often feel their service providers fail to fully understand their challenges, suggesting a fundamental disconnect in identifying these centers of gravity. This perception gap—documented in vendor management literature and practitioner discussions—reflects the difficulty providers face in moving beyond transactional relationships to develop the deep understanding of client contexts, business drivers, and specific pain points that enables truly strategic partnerships. Effective buyers recognize that different matters may require different centers of gravity—a complex antitrust case involving terabytes of structured data demands different capabilities than a trade secret dispute requiring forensic collection and chain-of-custody expertise.​

The Principle of Economy of Force

Military doctrine emphasizes economy of force—allocating minimum essential combat power to secondary efforts while concentrating resources on decisive operations. In eDiscovery procurement, this translates to strategic vendor portfolio management. Rather than attempting to build comprehensive internal capabilities across all phases of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM), sophisticated buyers identify which functions deliver strategic value internally and which should be outsourced to specialized providers.​

Organizations increasingly adopt a “core and flex” approach, maintaining preferred vendor relationships for routine matters while engaging specialized providers for complex challenges. This strategy mirrors Sun Tzu’s teaching that “he will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight”—recognizing that not every eDiscovery battle requires full engagement of organizational resources.​

Intelligence and Deception in Vendor Evaluation

Sun Tzu devoted significant attention to the role of intelligence gathering and the recognition that opponents often employ deception. In the vendor selection context, buyers must see through sales presentations and marketing claims to understand true capabilities, limitations, and cultural fit. This task requires going beyond demonstrations to conduct reference checks, pilot projects, and detailed technical evaluations.​

The Request for Proposal (RFP) process, when properly executed, serves as an intelligence-gathering operation. Effective RFPs force vendors to reveal their operational approaches, technical architectures, pricing methodologies, and problem-solving capabilities. However, buyers must remain vigilant against what might be termed “vendor deception”—not necessarily intentional misrepresentation, but the natural tendency of sales processes to emphasize strengths while obscuring weaknesses or gaps in capability.​

The Friction of Implementation

Clausewitz’s concept of friction—the accumulated small difficulties that make real operations far more challenging than theoretical plans—manifests throughout eDiscovery vendor relationships. Even after careful vendor selection, organizations encounter friction in data migration, platform onboarding, workflow integration, and the cultural alignment between buyer and provider teams.​

Research on vendor management identifies several friction points: quality control challenges as data moves between systems, communication gaps between legal teams and technical support, misaligned expectations on turnaround times, and the difficulty of preserving institutional knowledge across vendor transitions. Successful buyers anticipate this friction and build contractual and operational safeguards to minimize its impact, including clear service level agreements, escalation procedures, and governance frameworks.​

The Provider’s Offensive: Winning Without Fighting

From the provider’s perspective, Sun Tzu’s supreme principle—achieving victory without fighting—translates to differentiating offerings so compellingly that buyers perceive clear superiority without extensive competitive evaluation. In a crowded marketplace with over 150 suppliers listed in some current buyers’ guides, providers face the challenge of standing out while managing the costs of customer acquisition.​

Understanding the Customer’s True Objective

Clausewitz emphasized that war is “the continuation of policy by other means”—that military operations must serve broader political objectives. Similarly, effective eDiscovery providers recognize that buyers don’t simply purchase technology or services; they pursue underlying objectives such as cost predictability, risk mitigation, faster case resolution, or competitive advantage in litigation.​

The best providers engage in what might be termed “strategic listening,” investing time to understand each buyer’s unique challenges, organizational culture, and success metrics before proposing solutions. This approach contrasts sharply with feature-focused selling that assumes all buyers have identical needs. As one industry observation notes, understanding customer challenges is difficult work that requires exploring “technical, legal and inter-personal nuances”, but providers who master this intelligence gathering gain a significant competitive advantage.​

The Principle of Concentration

Military doctrine teaches that superior force concentrated at the decisive point wins battles. For eDiscovery providers, this translates to strategic focus—developing genuine expertise in specific technology platforms, industry verticals, or case types rather than attempting to be all things to all customers. The market rewards providers who can demonstrate depth in critical capabilities, whether that’s expertise in handling complex data types, excellence in managing large-scale document review, or specialization in regulatory investigations.​

This concentration principle appears in provider decisions about technology partnerships, geographic expansion, and service portfolio development. Providers must choose where to invest limited resources—in proprietary technology development, in expanding service capabilities, in strengthening security infrastructure, or in building customer support functions. These choices define competitive position and determine which buyer segments the provider can effectively serve.​

Adapting to Enemy Movements

Sun Tzu counseled that “water shapes its course according to the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.” In the eDiscovery market, providers must continuously adapt to shifting buyer expectations, emerging data sources, evolving regulatory requirements, and competitive innovations.​

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence capabilities exemplifies this adaptive challenge. Providers must balance investments in AI-powered analytics against the need to validate these tools defensibly, train staff in their deployment, and educate buyers on their proper application. Those who move too slowly risk losing market share to more innovative competitors; those who move too quickly without adequate validation risk quality failures that damage reputation and client relationships.​

The Fog of War in Pricing and Value Delivery

One of the most significant sources of friction and uncertainty in eDiscovery relationships involves pricing. Clausewitz’s “fog of war”—the uncertainty that pervades military operations—has its analog in the pricing opacity that characterizes much of the eDiscovery market.​

Buyers struggle to compare pricing across providers due to varying models (per-gigabyte processing, per-document review, subscription-based access, hybrid approaches), hidden fees for support services, and unpredictable costs as matter scope evolves. From the provider’s perspective, pricing must balance competitive positioning, profitability requirements, the costs of technology investments, and the variability inherent in legal matters that can expand or contract unpredictably.​

Sophisticated players on both sides recognize that pricing discussions should focus on value delivered rather than simply unit costs. A provider charging higher rates but delivering faster turnaround, higher accuracy, or better strategic guidance may deliver superior value compared to low-cost alternatives that require extensive buyer oversight and correction. This value-based approach aligns with Sun Tzu’s teaching that “the skillful strategist defeats the enemy without doing battle”—creating such clear value differentiation that price competition becomes secondary.​

Building Alliances and Managing Coalitions

Both Clausewitz and Sun Tzu recognized that warfare often involves alliances, coalitions, and complex political relationships beyond simple bilateral combat. In eDiscovery, these dynamics appear in the triangular relationships between corporate clients, outside counsel, and service providers.​

Each party in this coalition has distinct interests and concerns. Corporate legal departments seek cost control, risk management, and efficient resolution of legal matters. Outside counsel prioritize winning cases, protecting client relationships, and managing their own profitability. Service providers focus on delivering quality work, maintaining margins, and building long-term relationships that generate recurring revenue.

Clausewitz noted that “in alliances, the center of gravity lies in the unity formed by common interests.” Successful eDiscovery engagements require aligning these potentially divergent interests through clear communication, shared objectives, and governance structures that give each party a voice in critical decisions. When these interests become misaligned—for instance, when outside counsel resists corporate pressure to use lower-cost providers, or when providers cannot scale to meet sudden demands—the coalition fractures and the “campaign” suffers.​

The Trinity of Technology, People, and Process

Clausewitz described war as a “paradoxical trinity” composed of three interconnected elements: primordial violence and passion (the people), chance and probability (the commander and army), and political purpose (the government). This trinity offers a framework for understanding eDiscovery success, which similarly depends on three interdependent elements: technology, people, and process.​

Technology provides the tools and capabilities—processing engines, review platforms, analytics algorithms, and security infrastructure. Like military weaponry, technology evolves rapidly and can provide decisive advantages when properly deployed. However, technology alone never guarantees success.​

People—the expertise, judgment, and adaptability of legal professionals, project managers, technical specialists, and review teams—represent the human element that interprets technology outputs, makes strategic decisions, and manages the inherent uncertainties of legal discovery. Multiple providers cite “quality people” as their primary differentiator, though this claim often lacks substantiation through demonstrated outcomes.​

Process—the methodologies, workflows, quality controls, and governance frameworks that guide discovery execution—provides the organizational discipline that ensures consistent, defensible, and efficient operations. Sophisticated buyers evaluate providers not just on technology features or staff credentials, but on the maturity and adaptability of their operational processes.​

Like Clausewitz’s trinity, these three elements exist in constant tension and must be balanced according to the specific requirements of each engagement. Over-reliance on technology without adequate human oversight produces errors; excessive process bureaucracy stifles the adaptability needed to address unexpected challenges; brilliant people operating without robust process frameworks create inconsistent outcomes and defensibility concerns.

The Strategic Imperative of Long-Term Thinking

Both Clausewitz and Sun Tzu emphasized that tactical victories must serve strategic objectives. Sun Tzu warned against prolonged warfare that “blunts” weapons and dampens ardor, while Clausewitz insisted that military operations must serve coherent political purposes.​

In eDiscovery, short-term thinking manifests in several counterproductive patterns. Buyers who select providers based solely on lowest cost often experience quality problems, missed deadlines, and ultimately higher total costs when matters must be remediated or transferred to alternative providers. Providers who over-promise capabilities or under-resource engagements to win business may gain short-term revenue but damage long-term reputation and client relationships.​

The most sophisticated market participants adopt longer time horizons. Buyers invest in developing strategic partnerships with select providers, sharing knowledge about organizational needs and working collaboratively to optimize workflows over multiple engagements. Providers invest in understanding specific client challenges, customizing approaches, and building institutional knowledge that compounds value over time.​

This strategic orientation appears in vendor contracts that contemplate multi-year relationships rather than single-matter engagements, in buyers’ willingness to participate in pilot programs for new provider capabilities, and in providers’ investments in technology and staff development that may not show immediate returns but build sustainable competitive advantages.​

Navigating the Battlefield: Intelligence Resources and Strategic Planning

Resources like the ComplexDiscovery Buyers Guide, building on the foundational work of industry expert Andrew Haslam, serve as vital intelligence for organizations navigating the eDiscovery battlefield. With comprehensive listings of 164 supplier entries and 67 software solutions, augmented by market research, pricing considerations, and industry trends, such guides provide the reconnaissance data necessary for informed decision-making—one of many valuable resources alongside industry frameworks, peer networks, and direct market intelligence.

Equally important is the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM), which provides a universally recognized framework for mapping and managing the discovery process—from information governance to production. The EDRM’s phases help organizations benchmark their needs, evaluate vendor capabilities, and ensure comprehensive workflows.

Additionally, the Legaltech Hub offers continuously updated insights into emerging technologies, vendor landscape changes, and industry best practices. LegalTech Hub’s curated articles, research tools, and platform comparisons provide further strategic perspective—empowering buyers and providers to stay current in a fast-evolving market.

The Buyers Guide’s ongoing updates—together with frameworks like the EDRM and information platforms such as LegalTech Hub—reflect the dynamic nature of the eDiscovery market, where new providers emerge, established vendors evolve their offerings, and market forces reshape competitive dynamics. Organizations that treat vendor selection as a one-time event rather than an ongoing strategic process risk making decisions based on outdated intelligence.

Returning to the Battlefield

As we return to the concept introduced at the outset—that eDiscovery procurement represents a strategic battlefield characterized by friction, uncertainty, and the need for careful planning—several principles emerge from the integration of military strategy and practical marketplace dynamics.

First, success in eDiscovery—whether as buyer or provider—requires honest self-assessment. Organizations must understand their own capabilities, limitations, and true requirements before they can effectively engage the market. This self-knowledge, which Sun Tzu identified as foundational, enables organizations to distinguish between essential capabilities and peripheral features, between genuine value and marketing positioning.

Second, information gathering and analysis are continuous processes, not one-time events. The fog of war never fully lifts; it merely shifts and evolves. Buyers must maintain ongoing intelligence on provider capabilities, market trends, and emerging technologies. Providers must continuously deepen their understanding of customer challenges and adapt their offerings accordingly. Resources like the ComplexDiscovery Buyers Guide provide critical infrastructure for this ongoing intelligence gathering.

Third, successful eDiscovery relationships require moving beyond transactional interactions to strategic partnerships aligned around common interests. Like military alliances, these partnerships succeed when parties recognize interdependence, communicate transparently, and commit to shared objectives that transcend individual engagements.

Finally, tactical excellence must serve strategic purpose. The most sophisticated technology deployment, the lowest per-gigabyte processing cost, or the fastest turnaround time means little if it fails to advance the organization’s broader objectives—whether those objectives involve controlling legal spend, winning critical litigation, ensuring regulatory compliance, or maintaining competitive advantage.

The eDiscovery battlefield will continue evolving as data volumes expand, artificial intelligence capabilities mature, regulatory requirements multiply, and competitive pressures intensify. Organizations that approach this battlefield with strategic discipline—grounded in honest self-assessment, continuous intelligence gathering, careful vendor selection, and long-term partnership development—will navigate these complexities most successfully. Those that treat vendor selection as a tactical purchasing decision rather than a strategic imperative will, like armies that ignore the principles of war, find themselves fighting on unfavorable terrain with inadequate intelligence and misaligned resources.

In the end, both Clausewitz and Sun Tzu would recognize the eDiscovery marketplace as familiar terrain—where victory depends not on overwhelming force but on strategic clarity, superior intelligence, resource discipline, and the ability to adapt to circumstances that no plan, however carefully crafted, can fully anticipate. The friction remains, the fog persists, but those who master the principles of strategic thinking—whether derived from ancient military wisdom or modern marketplace experience—position themselves to achieve their objectives. In contrast, those who ignore these principles struggle in confusion and inefficiency.

Read the original article here.

About ComplexDiscovery OÜ

ComplexDiscovery OÜ is a highly recognized digital publication providing insights into cybersecurity, information governance, and eDiscovery. Based in Estonia, ComplexDiscovery OÜ delivers nuanced analyses of global trends, technology advancements, and the legal technology sector, connecting intricate issues with the broader narrative of international business and current events. Learn more at ComplexDiscovery.com.

News Sources

• EDRM Stages Standards (EDRM)
• Buyers Guide Archive (ComplexDiscovery)
• On War by Carl von Clausewitz (Full Text) (International Centre for Counter-Terrorism)
• The Principles of War – ClausewitzStudies.org (Clausewitz Studies)
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu (SunTzuSaid.com)
• The Principles Of War | Proceedings (US Naval Institute)

Additional Reading

• The Agentic State: A Global Framework for Secure and Accountable AI-Powered Government
• Cyberocracy and the Efficiency Paradox: Why Democratic Design is the Smartest AI Strategy for Government
• The European Union’s Strategic AI Shift: Fostering Sovereignty and Innovation
• Learning from Collective Failures: A Pre-Summit Reflection on AI Governance

Source: ComplexDiscovery OÜ
Assisted by GAI and LLM Technologies per EDRM GAI and LLM Policy.