After working with more than 100 clients Productivity Excellence has discovered the negotiation strategy that doom a Vendor contract to failure and miss-handling are as follows; “Let us sign the contract and work out the details later”. We can guarantee without reservation that you the client will lose in the end…you will not get fair value for your money.
There are many obvious and hidden factors that go into making up the full cost of a Vendor contract. We are successful at reducing Vendor costs for our Client. We use our systematic contract development methodologies to surface hidden cost factors for which Clients should not be paying. Our ability to successfully negotiate contracts is based on our experience as a Vendor and as the Client who purchase services and products. Basically, it is like being on both sides of a chessboard and understanding the gaming strategies, tactics and logistics implement by both players. There are issues you need to consider before contacting a Vendor; they are as follows:
ü What is average life span of a master contract before it before the Vendor and Client decides they no longer conduct business with each other? Would you like to save money, time, hurt feelings, business stress and beat the averages?
ü What is average length of time before there is dispute between the Vendor and Client that puts the project in peril of failure? Endangered projects cost time and money would you like smooth the road to completion?
ü Did the last service or product you received from a Vendor fall short of expectations? Did you know exactly what you were purchasing?
ü Was the service or product delivered to you on a timely basis or the date agreed on? Were potential delays in delivery clearly identified in the contract?
ü Before you make a purchase of services or purchase did you review the Vendor’s abilities to deliver services or products? Some Vendors have a stage set that they show to the Client but when you look behind the set there is nothing there to support business operations.
ü Do you know how the Vendor will manage delivery of the services and products and projects you purchased? Will the Vendor being subcontracting the work out to another contractor?
ü Do you have an ongoing process for auditing and reviewing the Vendor’s Service Level Agreement? Both the Vendor and Client are busy just doing the work to have an objective Third Party monitoring and ensuring all terms and conditions of the Service Level Agreement are being met.
ü Are you aware of practices that Vendors use to increase costs and deliver fewer services?
ü You signed the contract; have you made too many assumptions about what the Vendor will provide in terms of resources?
ü Do you know how to prevent contract scope creep that will cost you money?
|
