Helpful tips to make your strategic supplier relationships work really well

Collaboration is often a critical aspect of a successful major project. While we would like to think that the desire to act as a truly collaborative partner would be written into the DNA of a ‘good’ contractor, it is far…

The procurement process within the public sector is necessarily demanding to ensure clarity, fairness and consistency. Many procuring authorities may feel relieved once they ‘finish’ the procurement process, but sometimes this marks the beginning of an even more challenging phase…

In the world of complex projects and strategic supplier relationships, the ability to navigate potential challenges is paramount. A key component of this navigation is the practice of contingency planning, also known as developing a ‘Plan B’. Contingency planning is…

  Commissioning is a vital process that can make or break the success of delivering high-quality services that meet the needs of both service users and the wider community. To ensure success, it’s essential to have a client commissioning team…

The value for money that a service delivers is a vital message to convey on any project. Local authority councillors, on the frontline of public opinion, need to evidence this value for money from outsourced services. And, as the service…

Public sector bodies often consider the future delivery of a particular service or suite of services. In these deliberations, you will likely undertake an ‘options appraisal’ to assess which service delivery model would best support you in achieving your organisation’s vision and outcomes. So,…

Managing and evaluating a strategic contractor’s performance data is essential for you to ensure that value for money is achieved and that projects are successfully delivered. A key component of this process is direct online access (not a download) to…

For those in the finance sector the migration to a new banking system is a critical and complex process that demands thorough planning, detailed risk management and precision execution. It is likely to be one of the most challenging projects…

Contract management and supplier relationship management are two distinct disciplines that play a crucial role in the success of key supplier relationships and the achievement of expected outcomes from critical outsourced contracts. Although these activities have often been overlooked and…

Implementing a hospital theatre scheduling software solution is a complex and multifaceted endeavour. Healthcare organisations face numerous challenges in the successful execution of such major projects, including the need to balance patient care with operational efficiency, navigate an ever-evolving technological…

One practically inevitable fact of life is that when drafting contract terms for complex projects and services, the less clear your understanding is of the requirements of the project, the greater the chance of poor contractor performance behaviours. Two cases…

A complex business change initiative involves implementing strategic changes to the way an organisation operates. This type of project requires your team to have a deep understanding of the current state of the organisation and the desired outcomes, as well…

A well-articulated business vision means having documented clarity of your required business outcomes, what your organisation or department is aiming to achieve over the short, medium and longer term. It has two primary aims:  To ensure your internal team understand…

Stakeholder and strategic service provider understanding can vary significantly when it comes to effective KPIs and their purpose is often misunderstood. Many strategic service contracts structured by client legal teams focus on KPIs being ‘transactional’.   In most strategic service delivery relationships…

Gaining approval of a complex project business case can have its challenges. And, when you are competing with other initiatives within your organisation – as you often will be – some of which might be providing similar benefits to your…

If you are considering a replacement systems integrator for your current or future project, lessons learned from past experiences can often help build a far more accurate picture of ‘what good looks like‘ to benchmark against in any new relationship.…

Whole Life Costing is a critical aspect of the strategic procurement process of complex projects and a key tool for decision-making and budget allocation. The following is an illustrative guide to simplify the process of producing Whole Life Costing for…

Increased accuracy in predicting the costs involved within any complex/strategic project offers significant advantages – whether in negotiations within the procurement process, in developing more collaborative working relationships with your suppliers or in optimising efforts towards shared outcomes. And, while…

While large single supplier outsourcing relationships were all the rage a few years ago, we are seeing clients increasingly opting for either multi-sourcing or bringing services back in-house. So the question remains for many organisations: whether insourcing, outsourcing or some form…

The complexities of client/supplier relationships – between signing the contract and commencement of the implementation – can, in many cases, be distilled down to a key set of principles and ‘checklist’ of actions… these leads many to ask, “what is…

When clients and suppliers form business contracts, neither side ever starts off ‘expecting’ failure. However, that does not mean planning for this eventuality should be overlooked. Both parties need to have suitable contractual provisions in place to avoid the possibility…

Are you frustrated with the constant to-ing and fro-ing between some suppliers and your own legal teams as they take months to finalise contract terms that often don’t add any real value to the project or its business outcomes? We…

Court judgments are not just rulings for or against someone else. Insightful organisations use lessons learned from these to help inform their approach to improving clarity of requirement articulation on complex procurement projects. As around 85% of all client–supplier disputes…

“How do you know when to start a critical project?” As ‘timing’ can be crucial to the success of a project, it’s surprising that our experience evidences that it’s a skill not many organisations have mastered. If you begin a…

When UKCloud, the public sector hosting firm, went into liquidation, the government’s assurances that there would be little to no disruption as a result may have been premature. Reports in the media coming from some of UKCloud’s remaining customers suggest…

The payment for services provided is a fundamental tenet of any contractual agreement, so the first question we’d ask, is ‘why?’. Why would a client organisation be looking to delay payment under a contract? If you are considering withholding payment…

The users depending upon UKCloud (which has gone into administration) to get access to mission critical software and data, could have had a disaster on their hands. But, according to government sources, contingency plans that had already been factored into…

Every strategic project and supplier relationship carries a degree of material risk. Quite how much depends on a multitude of factors, not least being the level of articulation with which you define your vision, calculate your outcomes, and communicate your…

The NAO released a report a while ago on the state of best practice in the public sector titled ‘Commercial and contract management: insights and emerging best practice’. It offers good insights into the way commercial strategy and capability can…

Following on from our recent blog What ‘really is’ a breach of contract and seven actions to take, this article takes the discussion a little further by looking at the remedies that might be available to you should you perceive…

Less than half of all strategic supplier relationships achieve the business outcomes the client expects. Just let that sink in for a moment. This means that over fifty per cent of clients are wondering where it all went wrong. This…

You might expect the answer to the question in the title of this article, ‘Can you unilaterally modify a contract?’ to be a resounding ‘no’, but, as always, life is not that simple. The correct answer is ‘no, except when…’…

What a contract is and what it does is something that is likely to be understood by the individuals who subscribe to our thought leadership articles. But a void contract is not always obvious. A contract is defined as ‘a…

The ramifications of a breach of contract in a strategic and/or complex project/service delivery relationship can be significant to your organisation, your supplier’s business, and for everyone who is relying on the completion of the project you’re working on or…

It’s a question often asked, “how to deal with difficult strategic suppliers who won’t listen?” Do you… sometimes perceive that your strategic supplier (partner) is not listening to you. You feel they become defensive at everything you raise with them. You…

Outsourced relationships can often be punctuated with opportunities for controversy. Having dealt with improving the performance of over 500 outsourcing relationships, evidence continues to teach us that more than 50% of these high-value contracts fail to achieve their expected outcomes…

Developing the infrastructure within your organisation to transition from on-premise servers to cloud-based hosted systems comes with significant advantages. However, when you’re procuring potentially complex cloud solutions, particularly Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), there are also a multitude of challenges…

Agile projects require a very different approach, necessitating much closer working relationships between clients and their suppliers. One of the key purposes is to keep very frequent lines of communication permanently open. This coincides with a much more detailed initial…

To achieve optimum project performance in complex and strategic supplier relationships, you need to enlist the help of skilled people, placed in the right roles, while allowing them the freedom necessary to bring their skills and expertise to bear on…

Commercial trust in strategic supplier relationships concerns the way ‘on-the-ground’ behaviours impact the confidence parties have in one another. Essentially, doing what you say you’ll do, when you say you’ll do it, is a positive starting point for relationship building.…