FAQ

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,…

5 Must-Know Elements to Build a Strong Case for Contract Termination Terminating a strategic supplier contract early isn’t something you should do lightly. It poses a great many risks, not only due to the disruption terminating the contract will cause…

Building a collaborative working relationship with your strategic suppliers can truly be a game changer for most organisations. You’ll already know from experience that when suppliers understand your goals and align with them, everything seems to run far more smoothly…

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…

Deciding to terminate a strategic supplier contract before the end of its contract term, is a major undertaking. It poses a real risk of disrupting your organisation’s operations. It is also a significant drain on your time and potentially very…

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…

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.…

Effective contract and supplier management involves a number of facets. At its core, though, are two fundamental points: Define and maintain a clear purpose with your strategic contractor/supplier, so that roles and responsibilities between you remain aligned to the business…

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…

Once you have formally terminated the relationship, you need to treat the exit process as a key project in its own right. You will have developed a Business Case for the early contract termination and a well-considered exit plan. As with any project, the exit must have…

“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…

Your failing strategic supplier relationship is beyond repair and you have reached the point of terminating the contract. You want to make sure the exit goes as smoothly as possible in what might be a very challenging situation where emotions…

Negotiating early contract termination and exit is challenging and emotions often run high. If you have concerns about how to negotiate an early contract termination, there are steps you can take that will smooth the process and increase your chances of a successful…

Supplier negotiations for strategic projects can be complex and long-drawn-out affairs. If you don’t get the balance right, they can be costly and even fail outright to achieve your desired business outcomes. Contract negotiations need detailed preparation if you want…

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…

  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…

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 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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

The size, structure, skills and expertise of an Intelligent Client Function (ICF) team will depend upon the nature and scale of the supplier relationship, the business outcomes to be achieved and the criticality of the service being delivered. As services are added or removed to/from…

There are many reasons why you might consider Insourcing services or a function that has previously been delivered by an external third-party provider. We look at the typical challenges organisations face when undertaking the decision to insource and the foundations…

In this article, you should find everything you need to know about procurement services (including strategic procurement), procurement and contracting strategies, and procurement consultants and advisors. It will also offer guidance on whether external advice for procurement might be helpful…

In this ‘Back to Basics’ article, we’ll answer the question ‘What is a strategic partnership?’ by being clear about what distinguishes strategic partnerships from other types of supplier relationships. We’ll look at some common features of strategic partnerships, the potential…

While change can be worrying, often it’s the anxiety surrounding a prospective change in the status of your strategic suppliers/partners which can cause more uncertainty. Therefore, rapid, inciteful and accurate information to determine the validity and severity of an issue…

It is easy to say that SMART KPIs must clearly align to business objectives and to state that your business vision and your business objectives must be clearly articulated, however, the process needs focus and collaborative input and agreement from…

One of the key factors in creating a successful supplier relationship is to understand that the written contract terms with your supplier do not represent the final word on how your partnership should be maintained. If your supplier represents itself…

The foundation of effective contract management is a suite of essential documents which allow managers to keep track of performance and expenditure on their contracts, while dramatically reducing the time required to do so. Key documents that support effective contract…

You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been, as they say. So, by taking a look back at the origins of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and how the outsourcing market has evolved and…

Your Challenge – You are overseeing a major project that involves a significant service delivery transformation or the procurement of a complex IT solution. You may be engaging in a new strategic supplier relationship or need to improve one that is…

The Client-Side PFI Manager is the person in the client organisation with direct responsibility for managing the operational PFI contract. The management of operational PFI contracts consists of frequent, ad hoc and periodic activities. Frequent activities are those that need…

In this article we explain the why, what and how of the PFI Operations Manual – the cornerstone of effective and consistent day to day contract management. The typical length of a PFI contract (20-30 years), makes it extremely unlikely…

When we are asked to realign a complex service delivery relationship, we often find that each stakeholder has a slightly different definition of what a ‘strategy’ should look like. The most effective way to think of a strategy is as…

When Strategic Suppliers represent themselves as a specialist in the services you would like them to manage, the law implies certain obligations and responsibilities upon those suppliers, (their Expert Responsibilities) even if those responsibilities aren’t documented in any written contract terms or schedules…