This Year’s Top Ten

The most read blogs on Commitment Matters in 2009 reveal the uncertainty that surrounds contract management. As organizations increasingly recognise the importance of this discipline, they are researching how best to define and implement the role.

At its best, contract management is delivering significant added value, both in structuring trading relationships and in ensuring they deliver positive outcomes. However, there are few accepted models for how to achieve ‘best practice’, in large part because this field has lacked strong executive support. As a result, the scope of contract management is not well defined and there is rarely an agreed point of ownership.

Contract management practitioners have been at the forefront of those wanting to read more about the way that the function and its role is changing. But senior management has also been researching, to discover how others are approaching this topic.  While many organizations are investing in the development of a more skilled and increasingly strategic function (buy-side and sell-side), this approach is not universal. In some cases, centralized groups are viewed as an obstacle to closing business and are being dismantled.

Commitment Matters seeks to offer guidance to practitioners and senior management and the volume of readers suggests some success. This year’s most popular article – on The Role Of A Contract Manager – attracted more than 6,000 readers. Other areas that attract attention include the on-going debat eover the distinction between contract managers and lawyers; and perhaps related to this, there is interest in the way that contract management can deliver greater value – for example through encouraging more collaborative relationships or taking a more balanced view of risk.

So in case you missed any f the most popular articles, here are the Top Ten for 2009.