Contract Management Services
Ensuring best value from key supplier relationships
Our contract management services focus on helping clients to get the right balance in their key supplier relationships. Typically, these services will focus on the following areas:
Risk Prevention
When it comes to contracts, there is a tendency to blow the dust off them only when things start to go wrong. A key tenet of contract management is preventing risk long before it gathers the momentum to bite. Every contract has a value attached to it in the form of products or services supplied. Robust contract management ensures the value of products and services purchased is properly attained, and clamps down on ‘you get what you’re given’ scenarios where the threat of this emerges.
Stemming the ‘creep’
‘Creep’ is the silent killer of contracts. It is all too common as commissioned work progresses for costs to creep up, delays to creep in, and scope of work to creep outwards. In isolation each is damaging, together they make for a most unholy trinity. Robust contract management detects the early signs of ‘creep’, and halts its progress before any damage can be done, thus ensuring business benefits are realised, and client obligations are delivered.
Compliance
Compliance regulations exist to ensure businesses are acting responsibly towards their staff, customers, suppliers, and the environment. They are important, backed up by legislation, and falling foul of them can have dire consequences. The bigger and more complex a contract, the more difficult it becomes remaining compliant. Deploying contract management professionals then, is by far the most effective means of protecting your business from profit-annihilating fines. Indeed, American technology and services company, Aberdeen Group discovered that compliance is improved 55% with a contract management system in place.
Time
The fact that the procurement industry exists, a major component of which is contract management, demonstrates how much time and expertise it requires. A company can look to manage its own contracts, but every employee who is selected for this role is not working to acquire new business, and/or engage in other mission critical endeavours. Outsourcing contract management to dedicated professionals, allows every member of your workforce to focus their energies on growing the business.
Relationships
In this hyper-competitive, contemporary business world, reputations have never been so difficult to establish, and so easy to destroy. A contract that goes wrong can have consequences that reach far beyond the companies immediately involved. Not only is your name muddied with them, but with everyone they share their experience with.
Systems
There are many solutions out there, ranging from expensive and often clunky solutions that are native to your corporate Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, through to stand-alone cloud services that appear cost effective but don’t join up to the broader eco-system of applications and corporate reporting. Our approach to contract management starts with understanding what your team are actually willing to use day in day out and the incremental value that can derived be enhancing your capability and capacity to manage your suppliers’ contracts. The solution is something that fits your ways of working, not something which requires you to change everything to comply with clunky functionality in massive corporate systems. Flexible solutions can be developed from our existing tools to fit within your existing ways of working, enhancing them in ways people will appreciate and willingly adopt.
We Specialize in
Leveraging digital tools for Business and Procurement Outsourcing

Global Network
Our global network of procurement and commercial professionals means we can provide professional services to the highest standards where you need them most.

Artificial Intelligence
At Barkers our Digital tools and procurement managed services all incorporate the latest AI solutions.

Business Outsourcing
Our team of experienced practitioners can provide a full managed service to help you manage those tricky tender processes.

Data Mining Techniques
Combining cleansed quantitative and assessed qualitative data, we provide deeper insights into opportunities to increase profit and improve relationships.
Our Core Digital Products and Services
Our core offerings
Digital Dashboard Subscriptions
Or £6,000 for a yearly subscription
£750.00 / month

- Cloud-based digital tool
- Suite of category management templates and data input sheets
- Subscription to Microsoft Power BI for instant access
- Category experts to get you started and map your data sources
- On-site support to drive engagement if required
- Remote support available if preferred
- Available on monthly or annual subscription
Skills & Behaviour Assessments
Or £500 for 10
£75.00 / each

- £75 each or £500 for 10 Cloud-based assessments from our digital suite
- Category Management Skills Assessment
- Assertion Behaviour Inventory
- Negotiation Skills Assessment
- Access to global results database
- Available as one-off investment or suite of assessments
- Tailored training and coaching solutions if desired
Full Commercial Health Check
Or bespoke packages available
£10,000.00 / one off fee

- Expert Delivery Directors to conduct your health check
- Results available in a cloud-based dashboard
- Commercial Health Check Report
- Digital Dashboard Analytics
- Improvement Plan
- On-site support to understand business challenges
- Monitor improvements digitally against agreed performance measures
Register for a free 1 hour coaching session now!
If you are looking for a bespoke solution, please register your details and one of our Delivery Directors will contact you directly to understand your business challenges.