Managing Service Contracts


Book Description




Supply Chain Contract Management


Book Description

In recent years, the design of contracts in supply chains has received significant attention from researchers and practitioners. Companies try to improve their profits by designing efficient contracts that ensure a high availability of the product at a low cost. In this book the author presents a quantitative approach for designing optimal supply chain contracts. Firstly, service level contracts, which are frequently used between a supplier and a manufacturer, are analyzed. For this contract type, optimal contract parameter combinations are identified that lead to a coordinated supply chain. Secondly, an optimal contract selection strategy is developed for a supply chain where a manufacturer can choose among multiple potential buyers. Potential readership includes scholars of supply chain management and management science, graduate students interested in these areas as well as interested practitioners involved in negotiating contracts.




Fundamentals of Contract and Commercial Management


Book Description

This ground-breaking title from the world s leading authority on contemporary contracting best practices, the IACCM (International Association for Contract and Commercial Management) delivers a lively and practical complete insight into the contracting process which is useful in both business and personal life. Contracts are the language of business, and this book gives readers the essentials that can make a difference to any deal, no matter how big or small. Designed for the non-contract business professional, this book takes project managers and other professionals through the basic process and gives them a road map to improved results, increased value, and successful outcomes In this book you ll find sensible guidance and approaches to ensure business success. Case studies showing you what can go wrong and what can go right -- bring theory into the real world. Checklists give confidence and enable you to be certain that you have asked and answered the right questions as you go through any deal. This real-world approach demonstrates the value of effective contracting. This is not dry, academic prose. It is compelling and dynamic advice and tools to manage business relationships for both buyers and sellers.




Valley of Genius


Book Description

"This is the most important book on Silicon Valley I've read in two decades. It will take us all back to our roots in the counterculture, and will remind us of the true nature of the innovation process, before we tried to tame it with slogans and buzzwords." -- Po Bronson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nudist on the Late Shift and Nurtureshock A candid, colorful, and comprehensive oral history that reveals the secrets of Silicon Valley -- from the origins of Apple and Atari to the present day clashes of Google and Facebook, and all the start-ups and disruptions that happened along the way. Rarely has one economy asserted itself as swiftly--and as aggressively--as the entity we now know as Silicon Valley. Built with a seemingly permanent culture of reinvention, Silicon Valley does not fight change; it embraces it, and now powers the American economy and global innovation. So how did this omnipotent and ever-morphing place come to be? It was not by planning. It was, like many an empire before it, part luck, part timing, and part ambition. And part pure, unbridled genius... Drawing on over two hundred in-depth interviews, Valley of Genius takes readers from the dawn of the personal computer and the internet, through the heyday of the web, up to the very moment when our current technological reality was invented. It interweaves accounts of invention and betrayal, overnight success and underground exploits, to tell the story of Silicon Valley like it has never been told before. Read it to discover the stories that Valley insiders tell each other: the tall tales that are all, improbably, true.




Managing Construction Contracts


Book Description

This Second Edition focuses on the commercial issues of contracting, covering the lifespan of a contract in four stages: inception of need, bid and award, administration, termination. Written from the owners' perspective, it is appropriate for construction managers and contract administrators. New material includes the effects of the computer on construction management practices, the risks and rewards of cross-border contracts and the role of the lawyer.




Contract and Risk Management for Supply Chain Management Professionals


Book Description

What Will This Book Do for You? This book provides a survival manual for anyone involved in the crafting, structuring, negotiating, supporting or managing contracts involving commercial transactions of goods, services or both. It blends the practical with general legal principles and highlights best practices for supply chain professionals and anyone else involved, directly or indirectly, with the generation or management of contracts from cradle-to-grave. Even commercially wise and sophisticated organizations can be untrained and unaware of certain gaps and traps in the management of their contracts. This book addresses those pitfalls and provides lessons learned and guidance that are not typically taught at the college or even graduate school level. Experience can be hard and expensive to come by and this book provides a concentrated dose of experience that immediately raises the reader's level of sophistication and awareness for gaps and traps while providing practical solutions to pitfalls that can haunt any organization. Left unchecked, these pitfalls can lead to dysfunction and confusion; both of which can be an expensive proposition in today's competitive and uncertain economic environment. Who Should Use this Book? Supply Chain Management Professionals, Risk Managers, Insurance Experts, Project Managers, Purchasing Agents, Contract Administrators, Executives and any business or technical professionals who are involved with developing, managing or implementing projects, purchases or any complex transaction or procurement where cost, schedule and scope certainty are important. What Does This Book Cover? This book covers how the relationship of the parties affects commercial transactions and addresses the importance of upholding the integrity of the process and the contract by understanding key supply chain best practices. The book focuses on contracting strategies and approaches including how to structure requests for proposals and instructions to bidders as well as key considerations in pricing and pricing adjustments, risk management tools and techniques, the importance of defining the deliverables and outcomes, negotiation strategies and techniques, negotiating warranties and remedies, applying leadership and influencing skills to the process, how to implement sound change management as well as capturing and applying past lessons learned. In addition, special attention is given to the importance of sound "kick off" and "close out", including termination for cause or convenience techniques and other best practices.




Central Governments Management of Service Contracts


Book Description

This NAO report (HCP 65, session 2008-09, ISBN 9780102954487), examines how well central government organisations are managing their service contracts, assessed against the good practice framework for contract management. A further examination was done into the effectiveness of the Office of Government Commerce in supporting central government to improve contract management. The NAO has focused on contracts for information and communication technology, facilities management and business process outsourcing, where the contract had been signed and the service was up and running. In the 2007-08 period, central government spent over £12 billion on service contracts primarily in the areas of information and communications technology, facilities management and business process outsourcing. In total the NAO estimates that £240 million was spent on managing service contracts in the period 2007-08. Delivery of public services, protection against service failure and achievement of value for money are all dependent on effective contract management. The NAO has set out a number of findings and recommendations, including: that contract management is not always accorded the priority it deserves; that less than half the organisations surveyed had an individual with overall responsibility for contract management; that some contracts had taken several years before a proper system of management was actually in place, including resources and performance measures; that one-quarter of comercial directors/heads of procurement rated the level of resources allocated to contract management as poor; that central government do not routinely test their service contracts and good practice risk management practices are not being consistently applied. For the Office of Government Commerce the NAO found that: limited guidance is available on contract management; that central government organisations identified a need for better training for their contract managers; that no cross-government contract management community exists and that monitoring and managing major suppliers had focused mainly on the IT sector.




Service Agreements for Smb Consultants


Book Description

Service Agreements for SMB Consultants: A Quick-Start Guide to Managed Services by Karl W. Palachuk is an essential guide for I.T. Consultants. All forms are available to download online.Everyone knows it: Spoken agreements aren't worth the paper they're written on.The SMB Consultant is facing changes we never imaged a few years ago. Managed services are everywhere. Franchised tech support is taking off. And now big corporations are trying to compete in the "SMB Space." Whether you like it or not, you need to make some changes in order to meet the challenges of the next few years.Service agreements literally define your business. If you're not using them, you need to start today. If you are using them, great! Just make sure that they truly represent who you are and how you want to define your business.Whether you sell your services hourly, in blocks of time, or with a Managed Service plan, you need a good service agreement.As with his other books, Karl gives you more than just the forms. Service Agreements for SMB Consultants includes best practices and lots of great information to help you run your business more prosperously.




Contract Management and Administration for Contract and Project Management Professionals


Book Description

The Expanded, Enhanced, and Updated (810 Pages, 2 Volumes) Second Edition of the Must Have Information and Reference Book Designed to Guide Contract and Project Management Professionals to More-Effectively Plan, Prepare, Manage, and Administer RFPs and Contracts and Manage Contractors. - This Book provides discussions of the Legal Basics of Contracts and Contracting and the Theories, Principles, and Strategies of Contracting and Contract Management and Administration and introduces, describes, and discusses the author's unique and breakthrough concept of the Ten Stages of the Contracting Process which is a practical breakdown of the Contracting Process into Ten Interdependent Stages from planning and structuring the Request for Proposal (RFP) to Contract Close Out, Post Contract Requirements, Evaluating the Contract Documents, and Evaluating the Performance of Each Party. The Ten Stages of the Contracting Process provides Contract and Project Management personnel with a structured process to more efficiently and effectively plan, prepare, negotiate, manage, control, and evaluate RFPs and Contracts and manage and administer contracts and manage contractors resulting in well-prepared and well-managed RFPs, Contracts, and Contractors resulting in Successful Contracts and Projects. - This Book Includes - 1) Comprehensive Discussions of Contract Types/Forms, Applications, and Risks; 2) Examples of Check Lists, Forms, Formats, and Agendas used to Plan, Prepare, Manage, Administer, and Evaluate RFPs, Contracts, and Owner and Contractor Performance; 3) Examples of Practical Applications, Best Practices, Analytical Evaluations, and Lessons Learned; 4) Examples of Terms and Conditions and Definitions used in Contracts; - This Book Discusses - 1) The Integration of the Ten Stages of Contract Management with the Six Phases of Project Management and the Seven Phases of Engineering; 2) Contract Cost and Schedule Estimate Risks Based on Scope and Engineering Development; 3) Structuring the Correct Contract Type/Form Based on Scope and Engineering Development; 4) Structuring Contracts for Engineering Services with Example Formats, Agendas, and Terms; 5) Benefits and Pitfalls of Target Cost Contracts and Cost Reimbursable Contracts; 6) Pitfalls of Negotiating a Contract with a Sole or Single Source or Preferred Contractor; 7) Pitfalls of Proceeding with the Contract Work with Insufficient Engineering Documents; 8) Candid Discussions and Examples of How to Structure Effective Contract Incentives and Damages; 9) Warranties and Remedies Applicable to Contracts, Contract Work, and Completed Projects and Items; 10) Claims and the Claims Avoidance, Prevention, Management, Mitigation, and Analyses Processes; 11) Risk Management and Organizational and Human Performance Evaluation and Improvement Programs; 12) Examples of Successful and Not So Successful Contracting Situations; 13) The History of Westinghouse Electric Corporation and Westinghouse Electric Company, LLC, with Significant Contracting Lessons Learned Which Caused the Demise of Westinghouse Electric Corporation and the Bankruptcy of Westinghouse Electric Company, LLC; 14) The History of U.S. Nuclear Technology Development; the Development of Commercial Nuclear Power Plants; and Applicable Contracts and Projects Problems and Lessons Learned with Emphasis on Organizational and Human Performance Improvement Programs. The focus of this book is to improve the Contract Management skills of Project and Contract Managers, Contract Administrators, Project Engineers, Project Controls Managers, and other personnel involved in planning and executing projects requiring large, complex contracts for services, materials, and the design and fabrication of specially engineered components. The concepts, principles, strategies, and formats covered in this book are applicable to developing and managing all types of major contracts and both private and public contracts.