Contract Management & Commercial Challenges
So you are involved in contract or commercial management. Which of the following statements (all made by top executives at a recent conference) have relevance to you and your job, and in what way?
“There isn’t such a thing as an IT project, they are business projects. Virtually none of the failures are due to the technology.”
“We operate a procurement process that takes too long and prevents the interactions with suppliers that would support innovation.”
“We generally prefer to drive down the price from the supplier, rather than tackle the costs associated with waste and inefficiency. We rarely ask which would yield more, nor the extent to which our inefficiency is adding to the supplier’s costs.”
“ICT will move towards delivery as a utility. We must drive down cost, so price / performance is key.”
“Weaknesses in change management are typically a key factor in project failures and overruns.”
“In selecting our acquisitions and supply relationships, there are some fundamental obligations to satisfy. These are interoperability, agility, becoming greener and managing and protecting information.”
I would suggest that every one of these statements represents a challenge and an opportunity, whether we are involved with buying or selling. They are also relatively widespread as business problems. So to what extent and in what ways might they be addressed?
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