About the Course

Do you want a deeper understanding of the business that will help you to make better business and commercial decisions? In today’s challenging market conditions, having greater business awareness and know-how about business operations at strategic levels and how outside influences impact your business is helpful.

Commercial acumen requires an understanding and awareness of a wide variety of areas. This Contract Excellence for Non-Legal Professionals training course looks at a range of dynamics that influence the success of an organisation. By developing an awareness of these core business principles, delegates will clearly understand specific actions they and/or their organisation should take to reach their goals.

It will enable non-legal professionals to understand the process of commercial contracting and contract management with clients and contractors effectively and efficiently to ensure value for money, optimum terms & conditions and improved margins. It develops appropriate relationships with contractors and clients across various risk and value contracts. It will empower the delegates with the tools and techniques needed to best collaborate with contracts, commercial managers, procurement, clients, and all key stakeholders. Likewise, it aims to provide delegates with an understanding of how to influence decisions, focus on the critical business issues that affect your role, and understand why certain decisions are made from a commercial viewpoint.

Core Objectives

The delegates will achieve the following objectives:

• Understand the difference between commercial and contract management
• Recognise Contracts and Commercial Managers in the organisation and the role they play
• Understand the total process of managing buy-side and sell-side contracts
• Understand what it means to have Commercial Awareness
• Understanding your marketplace and what impacts your business
• Exploit opportunities to extract extra added value from the contract
• Develop appropriate relationships with contractors and clients
• Know how to be able to fully support more commercially focused decisions and arguments
• Understand and utilise a range of commercial and contracting strategies and options
• Measure and improve commercial contract performance, both buy and sell-side
• Understand the legalities of commercial and contract management

Training Approach

This training course is driven by a blended learning approach and draws on various adult learning techniques such as action learning, experiential exercises, group discussions, video case studies, role play and self-reflection activities. The resulting variety helps delegates stay engaged throughout the course, feel challenged and draw quick wins for their development. It also ensures delegates are exposed to ample opportunities to apply what they learn to the real-world challenges they face back in the workplace.

The Attendees

This training course is designed for non-legal professionals or those who are not contracts managers, procurement or commercial managers, who have direct or indirect responsibility for effectively developing commercial contracts and interacting with contractors and clients.

Likewise, it will be valuable to the professionals but not limited to the following:

• Finance
• Marketing and Media Managers
• Sales Managers
• Event Managers
• Business Development Managers
• Technical Experts
• Project Managers
• Internal Customers

Daily Discussion

DAY ONE: COMMERCIAL AWARENESS

• Overview
  • What does the term commercial awareness mean?
  • Why do you need to have more commercial awareness?
  • What is strategic thinking and how does it fit with commercial awareness?
• Understanding Businesses Commercial and Strategic Plans
  • What Impacts your Business?
  • What internal and external factors currently will impact your business in the future?
  • What impact will they have?
  • Using SWOT and PESTLE Analysis to Identify the Above

DAY TWO: DEVELOPING AND ARTICULATING THE NEED

• Understanding the Marketplace
  • Looking at the marketplace, you operate in and the competition
  • How your competition affects your business?
• Porter’s 5 Forces Model: Understanding the business environment
• Strategic Focus, Thinking and Decision Making
  • What things should you be working on, and what should be left alone
  • How to make the decisions above with a strategic and commercial focus?
  • Understand why decisions are made and why some get the green light, and others don’t
  • How to develop a solid commercial argument?
• Developing Specifications and Scopes of Work
• Improve robust contracting strategy and appropriate types of contract and clients

DAY THREE: STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT

• Who are the Commercial and Contract Managers?
• The Customers
  • Who are your Customers (Internal and External)?
  • How do they influence your decisions?
  • How do your decisions impact them?
  • How could you provide a better service to them whilst remaining commercially focused?
• The Stakeholders
  • How are the key decision makers in your business
  • How do they impact you, your job, your customers and your decisions
  • How to influence stakeholders to stand a better chance of getting the green light for your ideas
• Client and Stakeholder Analysis: Managing expectations and the ‘shared vision’ concept to ensure client co-operation, satisfaction, and delight

DAY FOUR: NEGOTIATION SKILLS AND MANAGING CHANGE

• Introduction to Key Negotiation Skills
• Persuading and Influencing Skills
• Behaviour and Conflict
• Explore the Critical Success Factors
  • Defining Successful Outcomes
  • Effective Stakeholder Engagement
  • Creating a shared vision of the outcomes with the Client and the Contractor
• Creating and Developing Commercial Relationships
  • Types of Relationships
  • Contractor and Client Motivational Issues: How to manage difficult relationships?
  • How to use incentives?
• Dealing with Claims and Variations: How to challenge contractor and client claims and requests for variations by using contractual terms and specifications?

DAY FIVE: CONTRACT PERFORMANCE AND CLOSEOUT

• Developing SLA/KPI Systems: How to measure and improve commercial performance?
• Understanding Key Contractual Terms and Conditions
• Basic Legal Principles
• Contract Close: Exploring the importance of effective contract close-processes
• Course Close Out and Action Planning