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Services

Commercial Strategy Development​

Craft tailored commercial strategies that align with your business goals and drive sustainable growth.​

Supplier and Vendor Management​

Optimise your supplier relationships and contracts to improve efficiency and reduce costs.​

Dispute Resolution and Mediation​

Professional support in resolving commercial disputes amicably to maintain business relationships and minimise disruptions.​

Risk Management Consulting​

Identify, assess, and mitigate commercial risks to safeguard your business operations and enhance decision-making. We recommend using a RADIO log (Risks, Assumptions, Dependencies, Issues, Opportunities) as it is less harmful than a RAID log.​

Software Tools​

We aim to integrate our knowledge into your software stack to reduce costs and maximise benefits through rapid deployment with minimal additional knowledge acquisition. If this is not possible, we can deploy our own Contract Toolkit or Contract Audit products, which are written in Claris.

Contract Toolkit
Audit

Project Management, Compliance & Regulatory Advisory

We ensure that your products are delivered on time with minimum risk. That Commercial Activities comply with all relevant regulatory requirements and industry standards.

Pre-contract ServicesBid

Bid Qualification – It is crucial to have a straightforward and efficient process for qualifying bids. Bidding is a quick way of spending expensive resources, so you need to be very clear on what you can do and who you want to do it with. Pre-sales are often the first step in identifying which deals you will work on and which you should not.

The bid/no-bid decision board or process must be straightforward, efficient, and not require excessive paperwork. If you achieve this, then your sales force will not try to avoid the process but will bring forward opportunities in your sweet spot because they know they will get support for a sale. We can help you establish your:-

  • Together, we will understand:
  • What is your target market?
  • Who is in the sweet spot for your solution?
  • Does your prospect fit?
  • Industry, size, location?
  • Are they reputable/good payers?
  • Are there any other factors you need to consider, such as export control rules?
  •  

Bid Support

Practical support for Bid Support Services in identifying commercial, legal, financial, and technical issues in a bid ensures no costly surprises later.

  • Effective monitoring ensures that this issue is identified, and any risk is mitigated and stabilised in the proposal. This now requires a very sharp pencil to be applied to the pheromone to decrease the risk.
  • Provision of a clear negotiation strategy for approval by management, so they know what they are signing and the associated risks. TransparentTransparent
  • Transparent governance and accountability for all decisions that will stand up to Freedom of Information Act inquiries.
  • We have a solution to match your needs. Talk to us now to understand.
  • Governance Design – Governance needs to support deals, not dominate the organisation and limit opportunities. It needs to improve the bid win rate, eliminate post-contract surprises, ensure compliance with legislation such as export control, facilitate the ease of getting deals approved quickly, enable management to make constructive interventions, and approve good businesses with minimal time commitments. It also needs to be a continual feed into best practices. Above all, it must be simple, quick, and easy to use.
  • We can help you with this review of many of our current SMS offerings, providing you with tools that enhance and simplify your experience. Contact us today!

RADIO

Risks, Assumptions, Issues, and Dependencies (RAID): When creating a bid or running a project, we create such a log in the hope of avoiding surprise and unifying perspectives on project variables. We then seek to quantify and evaluate the risk. Organisations have numerous such documents on spreadsheets, and here is the problem. Senior management does not get a real-time RAID view, and the view presented is relatively negative as everyone compiling the RAID log is trying to protect the project.Therefore

  • Therefor,e we hav developed a RADIO (Risks, Assumptions, Dependencies Issues, and Opportunities approach,y adding Opportunities tomanage thinking in the roomand focus onn a positive perspective tha benefits the client. It brings other skills into the room, such as sales to exploit the opportunity or product management to develop the product. Furthermore
  • Further, we have built it as a cloud-based database; thus, it presents the position in real-time as it changes. The board now sees the challenges facing the company as a whole, including the cost implications for the business.
  • The following five points should be in separate boxes. The Software toolbox should allow a click-through to a page for the Contract Toolkit and a page for Audit.
  • Commercial Strategy Development – Craft tailored commercial strategies that align with your business goals and drive sustainable growth.
  • Supplier and Vendor Management – Optimise your supplier relationships and contracts to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
  • Dispute Resolution and Mediation – Professional support in resolving commercial disputes amicably to maintain business relationships and minimise disruptions.
  • Risk Management Consulting – Identify, assess, and mitigate commercial risks to safeguard your business operations and enhance decision-making. We recommend using a RADIO log (Risks, Assumptions, Dependencies, Issues, Opportunities) as it is less harmful than a RAID log.
  • Software Tools – We aim to integrate our knowledge into your software stack to reduce costs and maximise benefits through rapid deployment with minimal additional knowledge acquisition. If this is not possible, we can deploy our own Contract Toolkit or Contract Audit products, which are written in Claris.
    • Contract Toolkit – In our experience, money is lost post-signature due to a failure to monitor the Contract. We can provide tools that will eliminate such issues, help you increase profits, and enhance governance with minimal administrative overhead. For example:
    • We start by focusing on what the board wants to know. Answer: nothing, unless it’s going wrong, then everything goes wrong. We provide a dashboard that shows reality in real-time, with the ability to click through to an item if it turns “red,” for example, and view all information related to that escalation.
    • Contracts Toolkit
    • We are agnostic about systems; we will review your software stack and suggest how you can achieve the visibility you need with what you already have.
    • We aim to make the working relationship of a large, complex contract more effective by having the parties share a single, accurate version of the truth.
    • We are prepared to base some of our payment on the results; that is how confident we are in our approach.
    • What Does the Toolkit Consist of?
    • In the obligation register, we break down the Contract into metadata. We then crowdsource the obligation checking, so the most appropriate person checks the clause, irrespective of which organisation employs them. One version of the truth in real time for you, your supplier, or customer
    • The change control register is a simple log that enables the board to see where they are with Change controls.
    • It comes into its own, for example, at the end of the year when they can see how many proposals are out for approval and which ones could be delivered before the year-end. They could decide to offer 5% discounts to get those over the line and into this year’s numbers, for example. When viewed across the organisation, questions arise, such as, “Why is X client rejecting so many change controls?” Should they raise the issue at their next executive meeting?
    • In the Claims and Disputes Register, we record and monitor all disputes and claims, as well as their progress toward resolution. Enabling management to make strategic decisions, particularly when seeking to maintain good relations, is crucial as a new major bid approaches. This ensures there are no surprises and nothing is overlooked.
    • The “goodwill” register is beneficial for recording those little extras one does for each other in a relationship. We have seen examples where 30% of the contract value was given away as goodwill to a client. One client received £28 million of goodwill in a year.
    • When you sign a contract, there are often questions over the interpretation of a clause or task. A decision is made, and people proceed accordingly. Something happens, and the analysis changes. This log aims to capture these points, agree on their meaning with the parties, and document them. Thus, subsequently, in any future confirmed copies of the Contract, the interpretation can be included.
    • A Calendar of Events to ensure nothing is missed, for example, a rate increase. We have seen examples of the team not being aware that a rate increase was permitted under the Contract because it was specified in the terms and conditions (T&Cs), and they only read the schedules. That cost the client £1 million because the customer would allow them to claim it going forward, but not in retrospect. Where calendars are aggregated, it helps plan work more effectively.
    • Issues Log: You had a negotiation plan, and you got most of what you wanted, but not x, y, and z. Quite often, people forget such items; we don’t; we put them on the issue log and, in future negotiations, seek to include them.
    • You’ve found professional help. Contact our company today.
    • Audit – Best Contracts has designed an audit framework database to enable us to quickly identify how commercial relationships you have entered into contribute to the value for money of the services you offer. We have developed the framework through reviews of National Audit Office reports, the Magenta and Green Books, and our experience in developing business cases or conducting assessments.
    • Our Unique Offering
    • Our framework is quick and easy to implement, and it works on iPads, tablets, or mobile phones. It suggests questions that the auditor should consider and advises on what the auditor should look for in assessing compliance. It is not an exhaustive list; however, it is an excellent base level to which other specific, relevant study questions can be added.
    • The use of mobile technology provides us with an advantage. It allows a photograph to be taken as evidence of compliance or non-compliance, which is then automatically attached to the report. Thus, the reviewer can challenge the auditor’s interpretation of the actual evidence, as a copy is in front of them.
    • The audit framework is designed to help identify compliance with governance, contractual, and commercial relationships, making it particularly suitable for complex agreements. You can run comparison reports between various projects and identify good and poor practices within the same organisation to assist with rapid improvement.
  • The following two points should be in separate boxes similar to the first five and included with the first five.
  • Project Management, Compliance & Regulatory Advisory – We ensure that your products are delivered on time with minimum risk. That Commercial Activities comply with all relevant regulatory requirements and industry standards.
  • Pre-contract ServicesBid
    • Bid Qualification – It is crucial to have a straightforward and efficient process for qualifying bids. Bidding is a quick way of spending expensive resources, so you need to be very clear on what you can do and who you want to do it with. Pre-sales are often the first step in identifying which deals you will work on and which you should not.
    • The bid/no-bid decision board or process must be straightforward, efficient, and not require excessive paperwork. If you achieve this, then your sales force will not try to avoid the process but will bring forward opportunities in your sweet spot because they know they will get support for a sale. We can help you establish your:-
      • Together, we will understand:
      • What is your target market?
      • Who is in the sweet spot for your solution?
      • Does your prospect fit?
      • Industry, size, location?
      • Are they reputable/good payers?
      • Are there any other factors you need to consider, such as export control rules?
  • Bid Support – Practical support for Bid Support Services in identifying commercial, legal, financial, and technical issues in a bid ensures no costly surprises later.
    • Effective monitoring ensures that this issue is identified, and any risk is mitigated and stabilised in the proposal. This now requires a very sharp pencil to be applied to the pheromone to decrease the risk.
    • Provision of a clear negotiation strategy for approval by management, so they know what they are signing and the associated risks. TransparentTransparent
    • Transparent governance and accountability for all decisions that will stand up to Freedom of Information Act inquiries.
    • We have a solution to match your needs. Talk to us now to understand.
    • Governance Design – Governance needs to support deals, not dominate the organisation and limit opportunities. It needs to improve the bid win rate, eliminate post-contract surprises, ensure compliance with legislation such as export control, facilitate the ease of getting deals approved quickly, enable management to make constructive interventions, and approve good businesses with minimal time commitments. It also needs to be a continual feed into best practices. Above all, it must be simple, quick, and easy to use.
      • We can help you with this review of many of our current SMS offerings, providing you with tools that enhance and simplify your experience. Contact us today!
  • RADIO – Risks, Assumptions, Issues, and Dependencies (RAID): When creating a bid or running a project, we create such a log in the hope of avoiding surprise and unifying perspectives on project variables. We then seek to quantify and evaluate the risk. Organisations have numerous such documents on spreadsheets, and here is the problem. Senior management does not get a real-time RAID view, and the view presented is relatively negative as everyone compiling the RAID log is trying to protect the project.Therefore
  • Therefor,e we hav developed a RADIO (Risks, Assumptions, Dependencies Issues, and Opportunities approach,y adding Opportunities tomanage thinking in the roomand focus onn a positive perspective tha benefits the client. It brings other skills into the room, such as sales to exploit the opportunity or product management to develop the product. Furthermore
  • Further, we have built it as a cloud-based database; thus, it presents the position in real-time as it changes. The board now sees the challenges facing the company as a whole, including the cost implications for the business.