How Conga Transforms Revenue Lifecycle Management with TiDB

Today’s businesses require seamless, scalable, and intelligent revenue lifecycle management solutions that can efficiently handle transactional and analytical workloads. Conga, a recognized leader in revenue management, is a pioneering company transforming the revenue operations space through a unique blend of cloud-agnostic architecture and cutting-edge hybrid transactional/analytical processing (HTAP) technology.

We recently had the opportunity to speak with Haseeb Khan, VP of Software Engineering at Conga, about the company’s journey to modernize its technology stack. The conversation revealed how they’re using TiDB — an open-source, distributed SQL database with mixed workload processing capabilities — to simplify operations, reduce costs, and empower customers with better data-driven insights.

The Comprehensive Conga Vision for Revenue Management

Conga delivers a broad suite of products that power the entire revenue lifecycle. These include configure-price-quote (CPQ), contract lifecycle management (CLM), order management, billing, document generation, approval workflows, and e-signature tools. Historically built on the Salesforce platform, Conga recognized the limitations of being tethered to a single CRM.

“We decided to build a cloud-agnostic, CRM-independent platform,” explained Khan. “This shift was guided by key principles: It had to be API-first, cloud-enforced, CRM-agnostic, and above all, scalable and secure.”

These principles helped Conga develop a new platform that can operate across multiple cloud environments and support customers using different CRM systems, such as Microsoft Dynamics and custom solutions. Security, high availability, performance, and fault tolerance were baked into the foundation from day one.

Conga Data Complexity as a Catalyst for Change

With a growing customer base ranging from small businesses to global enterprises in highly regulated industries like healthcare, Conga needed a modern data architecture. The legacy systems they used were effective for transactional workloads but couldn’t scale easily for analytical demands. The company often had to rely on separate ETL processes and duplicate infrastructure to support reporting and data analytics.

“We realized early on that maintaining separate systems for transactions and analytics was not only inefficient but costly,” said Khan. “This spurred us to look for a unified data platform that could manage both workloads effectively.”

How Conga Discovered the Right Database Solution

Conga evaluated multiple database technologies before choosing TiDB. Several criteria shaped their decision:

1. Performance and Scalability: With customer workloads varying in size and complexity, TiDB’s ability to scale horizontally while delivering consistent performance was a standout.
2. Open-Source Flexibility: Regulatory requirements, especially from European customers under GDPR, demanded greater control over data hosting. “Most cloud-only providers didn’t meet our compliance needs. Open source gave us deployment flexibility,” Khan emphasized.
3. Unified Workloads: By supporting both transactional and analytical queries in the same database, TiDB eliminated the need for complex ETL pipelines, enabling real-time insights.
4. Future-Proof Features: TiDB’s support for vector search and full-text search meant that Conga could eventually consolidate technologies used for AI and search use cases as well.

“TiDB aligned with our long-term vision for simplifying architecture and scaling intelligently,” Khan added.

Implementing TiDB: Conga’s Phased Approach

Migrating a mission-critical system is no small feat. Conga is approaching this transformation methodically.

“We’re starting with enabling analytical use cases for select customers, then gradually rolling out transactional workloads,” Khan said. “We’re taking a one-customer-at-a-time approach to minimize risk and maximize learning.”

This phased migration allows the company to fine-tune performance, troubleshoot potential challenges early, and gather valuable feedback to improve the experience as more customers transition to the new platform.

Unlocking New Possibilities for Customers

Even at this early stage, the benefits are becoming evident. One of the biggest wins is the reduction in operational overhead.

“Previously, we maintained four different technologies for handling transactions, analytics, search, and vector data. Now, TiDB offers a unified solution for all these use cases,” Khan said.

This simplification has made the system easier to maintain, faster to iterate on, and more cost-effective. For customers, the shift translates to faster insights, more robust data tools, and improved user experiences.

“We’re already seeing new use cases emerge,” Khan noted. “With vector search and AI capabilities, we’re exploring personalized contract recommendations, intelligent pricing models, and smart document retrieval. These features were difficult or impossible to implement with our legacy stack.”

Developer-Friendly by Design

Beyond performance and flexibility, TiDB’s MySQL compatibility makes it accessible for developers across the organization. “When new developers join the team, they don’t have to learn multiple databases,” Khan said. “If they know MySQL, they can hit the ground running with TiDB.”

This ease of onboarding and development velocity is a crucial advantage for a growing company like Conga, where product iteration speed can be a competitive differentiator.

Looking to the Future: Conga’s Full Migration and AI Integration

Conga’s roadmap for 2025 is ambitious but well-planned. “By this time next year, we want all our customers to be fully migrated to TiDB for all workloads — transactional, analytical, and even AI-driven,” Khan said.

The company is closely watching TiDB’s development roadmap, particularly around advancements in vector search and full-text capabilities, as these will play a vital role in supporting Conga’s AI ambitions.

“We believe this move will be a game-changer for us. Getting the right performance, at the right scale, in a secure and compliant way is going to be a big win.”

Conclusion

Conga’s journey is a compelling case study in how a technology-first mindset can lead to transformative outcomes. By adopting TiDB and embracing mixed workload processing capabilities, the company is:

• Simplifying its tech stack
• Enhancing performance and scale
• Lowering operational costs
• Supporting real-time analytics and AI
• Meeting stringent compliance standards

For companies navigating similar challenges, Conga’s strategy provides a bold blueprint: Build a flexible foundation, choose technology that aligns with long-term goals, and embrace change incrementally.

As the world moves toward more integrated and intelligent revenue operations, Conga’s forward-looking approach ensures it remains a leader in helping businesses drive growth through smarter, faster, and more secure revenue management solutions.

Want to learn how your company can get started with TiDB the right way? Book a tech talk with one of our distributed SQL experts.