Helpful tips to make your strategic supplier relationships work really well

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 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…

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…

The following post focuses on one of the key issues explored in our white paper on improving Health and Social Care Services and significantly reducing costs. Download your free copy here. Improving health and social care outcomes, while significantly reducing…

‘Harmony’ is one of the elements that is good for business. However, the further reality is that there needs to be a little ‘constructive tension’ in any organisation, to challenge accepted norms, alongside the freedom to express these challenges to…

Have your outsourcing relationships always followed a textbook flow from selection to outsourcing relationship management and finally to successful conclusion? Perhaps not; life just isn’t that simple. Critical strategic supplier and partner relationships are difficult, complicated and ever-changing, and as…

It will not come as news to you that the vast majority of complex, large-scale digital transformation projects fail. This will happen for a litany of reasons, but against such a backdrop, the most important question is that if you recognise…

When you are looking for a fit for purpose solution partner to help you on your digital transformation journey, how much of your focus is on the systems versus the likely effect on the business change that solution may cause…

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…

Shared services can offer significant benefits – including improved savings, continuity and quality of service, systems and scalability – but only if you can overcome the challenges that will naturally appear when you ask service user parties with different goals,…

When looking to transition from one complex project or outsourcing agreement (including the supplier) to another, one of the key issues we find is that all too often organisations try to ‘fill in the gaps’ from what was being delivered…

What is a ‘fit for purpose contract’? And how can it really drive collaborative behaviour? When it comes to complex projects and service delivery relationships, the aim of a fit for purpose contract is for it to provide the operating foundations to drive…

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…

The creation of an evaluation framework for public sector procurements is something that I cannot stress the importance of enough; not only is a good evaluation framework the only way to accurately measure the relative merits (or otherwise) of submitted…

Why read this article? Key takeaways: There are 13 key subject areas of great practical importance which the government’s ‘Sourcing Playbook’ recommends in order to help drive maximum value in these complex projects and relationships. The first half of this…

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…

If an individual or small group of employees wants better pay, healthcare or changes to other terms of employment, they may highlight this to you, their employer. But how seriously will you take their request (barring the nature of the…

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…

While there has been a tendency towards agile principles and approaches within procurement in recent years – often to compensate for unknown ‘unknowns’ at the outset of a project – in complex strategic projects it is usually far more cost…

The relationship you create, nurture and commit to with your strategic supplier partner(s) has the potential to drive the right behaviours to generate sustained dedication to innovation. In turn, this often helps you achieve your ultimate business outcomes more quickly…

You may be looking for a way to achieve better value and success from your digital transformation projects. A good source of inspiration would be a recent NAO report on the topic – The challenges in implementing digital change. It…

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…

A collaborative partnership in complex projects can only exist where a fair and balanced spread of interests and value is achieved between the parties. In other words, good partnerships exist in an environment where mutual interests are not only sought…

Many of our blogs refer to the importance of not only entering larger contracts in the right way but also the equal, if not greater, importance of managing these contracts and the providers they are with, once they are in…

Digitising health records has been a government goal since the days of the failed NHS National Programme for IT (NPfiT) – launched in 2002 with a budget of £6.2 billion its goal was, among other top-down changes, to introduce a…

The South East Lincolnshire Councils Shared Services Partnership is stated to be a “ground breaking”, “bold and ambitious” new alliance between the Boston, East Lindsey and South Holland councils – the largest collaborative local authority relationship of its kind in…

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 Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market in the UK today is worth c.£16bn and is expected to rise to c.£20bn over the next five years. It currently employs over 200,000 people in around 32,000 businesses and allows user-organisations across the…

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…

This is the final article in a series which has charted the rise of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market and technology outsourcing, from its early days and the aspirations of those who developed this new way of working across…