FAQ Contract/Relationship Management

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…

“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…

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…

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…

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 ‘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…

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…

The most successful service delivery relationships have business case development at their core, ensuring that they clearly articulate the specifics of what will change in the organisation once the business objectives or outcomes have been achieved. A sound business case will identify what operational, financial…