Contract Lifecycle Management

Barkers > Contract Lifecycle Management

Contract Lifecycle Management

Barkers have been recognised by Consultancy.UK as a Gold Procurement Consultancy Firm. Consultancy.UK recognise those organisations leading the way in procurement consultancy within the UK with organisations assessed on their procurement capabilities, company reputation, analyst benchmarks, industry recognitions, thought leadership and more.

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Aspire to achieve

Contracts streamlined to strategic business priorities
Enriched supplier relationships
Greater business efficiencies
Reduced costs
Enhanced risk management plans
Contracts which offer sustainable solutions and longer-term value.

Align your contracts to strategic goals

Why Choose Us

A Tailored Approach

At Barkers we look at contract lifecycle management differently. Whilst we have tried and trusted methodology developed over our decades of experience and refined to incorporate the latest insight and technologies, we take a tailored approach specific to the contract and the context of the organisation.

A Comprehensive Process

We will always work with clients to fully understand the business circumstances and the drivers for change. As part of this process, we’ll undertake a gap analysis on the current approach against best practice principles. This will always be led by an experienced practitioner ensuring that we use our market insight from multiple clients and sectors to recommend contract solutions which offer more than simple cost benefits.

A Long-Term View

We’re committed to ‘working with’ an organisation as opposed to ‘doing things’ to them. We forge great relationships with our clients, ensuring that the knowledge and understanding of the contract management approach undertaken is owned, embedded and sustained by internal teams. This long-term value is consistent with our principles to leave a legacy that extends beyond our involvement.

Features of Contract Lifecycle Management

At Barkers we set clients on a journey of robust contract lifecycle management which deliver certainty, defined governance, opportunities to mitigate risk, innovation potential and much more.

Typically, we’ll prioritise working on contracts of great worth, lengthy duration or high degrees of complexity which are likely to be in regards to Capital, services, Outsourcing or hybrid models. This offers our clients maximum impact and return on investment.

Simplified, our proactive and methodical approach to contract lifecycle management covers a four-stage process which our experienced team of contract professionals support clients to execute fully.

Planning, Selection and Contract Creation

A collaborative stage of the process that seeks to understand a client’s current contract commitments, drivers for change and strategic business priorities. This is combined with independent gap analysis, benchmarking and market research resulting in recommendations of contract and supplier selection based on criteria which includes complexity of project, risk capacity and capability.

Execution

Within contract execution we work with clients to establish and formalise processes to ensure the smooth running of new contract implementation. We’ll support the application of a transition plan and any change methodology systems that may be required.

Administration and Monitoring

Once the new contracts are established, work doesn’t stop there. We encourage and facilitate supplier relationship management. This can often have profound impacts on innovation and can provide continuous improvement opportunities for clients to harness. Tracking and benefits reporting are key at this stage and risks will continue to be identified and managed.

Analysis, Exit / Renewal

At Barkers our analysis skills are second to none. We work with clients to assess impact against original drivers for change, as well as reviewing datasets against benchmarks. Recommendations will be made to support the client to achieve optimum results and facilitate decision making to renew or exit.

Outcomes

Each client and each contract is different due to variations in complexity, contract type and inhouse capabilities. So no two outcomes will ever be the same. But what we can guarantee to clients is that they will achieve more than simple cost benefits and short-term value from our contract lifecycle management service.

Our service will provide:

A benchmarked process which takes account of market changes and enables new legislation and/or advances in practice or technology to be considered and provisioned for. This ensures clients’ contracts are future-proofed.
A clear and structured plan for both the client and service provider, enabling contracts to be delivered as intended, milestones to be met, and a platform for informed decision making.
Elimination of under-performing contracts in a controlled and disciplined way.
The opportunity for value that has been agreed but not delivered, to be realised through our superb negotiation and SRM skills.
Course correction and re-setting of relationships if needed, handled in a sensitive yet pragmatic way.
A clear and concise risk register with mitigating actions and plans which is owned within the contracting entity.
Comprehensive reporting and intelligence for next generation contracts, paving the way for future success.

Achieve your business ambitions with Barkers.

CASE STUDIES

We have been working with Barkers for nearly 10 months and they have successfully delivered Coupa to four divisions of our organisation which is going through huge change and the centralisation of many functions. This has created many obstacles for the project team to overcome, but all Barkers team members have taken this in their stride and dealt with difficult scenarios professionally. Their pragmatic, flexible and personable approach has been extremely valuable to our delivery, something much larger consultancy firms would not be able to accommodate. We are close to completing the fifth and final deployment of Coupa to a division which has many more nuances within its billing processes, but due to time constraints put onto the project team from outside of the project teams’ control, Barkers have again adapted their delivery to match the needs of their customer whilst ensuring what they deliver is still up to the highest standards. It has been a pleasure and a breath of fresh air to deal with a smaller consultancy firm whose employees ensure they get to understand their customers needs and offer solutions without charging extra for the privilege of providing their knowledge and assistance.

Paul Thwaites

Senior Project Manager, Vanquis Banking Group

The Barkers appointment has been a tremendous success; the teams' technical ability, flexibility, guidance and pragmatism has been first class. It is a true example of client and partner collaboration.

Steven Schools

Head of Procurement and Supplier Management, Vanquis Banking Group

Barkers approach to our challenge delivery impressed me. Jersey Electricity faces a lot of different challenges, and therefore it is tough to find the right people – especially people that would fit our requirements. Being a small and strongly diversified business in a geographically isolated environment, we needed a versatile specialist to come in and advise on multiple different topics. Barkers delivered just that. The consultant working with us was not only strong in the primary field of expertise (Procurement) but could as firmly ask challenging questions to technical people. Working in this way allowed Barkers to expand the primary scope and Jersey Electricity to receive valuable support.

Mark Preece

Operations Director, Jersey Electricity

I have worked with Barkers in the past and so was aware of both their strong procurement and commercial excellence as well as their relevant market sector knowledge. Once the team were briefed on the outcomes we required and the timeframe to deliver, we worked together on the feasibility of our plan to build something achievable. This allowed us to manage internal expectations and build trust in the plan. With any procurement project there are changes and unforeseen challenges that can impact timelines and this project was no exception. Barkers supported us through the changes, challenged them where appropriate, and amended the work where changes were necessary. Barkers always put the project and the outcomes first showing a high degree of integrity. The outcome Barkers delivered was timely, robust and showed a clear benefit, I would not hesitate in using Barkers again.

David Anderson

Head of Commercial, OVO Energy

The Barkers Led Procurement transformation at Argent had an immediate positive impact. The Barkers team positively engaged with the business and helped deliver procurement improvements to the indirect categories of spend. These changes enabled a step changed for how procurement was viewed across the business.

Nicola Dean

CFO, Argent Energy

An inspiring partnership, recognising and developing creative solutions to local social issues in the most effective way. Barkers and Bolton Family are a compelling example of people coming together from right across the community, with passion, authenticity and trust.

Lisa Charles

Director Of Business Services, Bolton at Home

We engaged Barkers to help us conduct an end to end review of Procurement. This included a tailored approach to our business objectives and our Procurement capability with a full set of recommendations that we have implemented over the past 12 months. The end result has been a successful programme of change, that has delivered a solid set of foundations to take our business and the function forward. Our lead partner on the ground was fantastic, and really stepped up to the challenges we faced and became an integral enabler of change.

Karen Lounds

Business Services Director, Tata Chemicals

We selected Barkers primarily for the depth of their procurement experience but also because their ethical approach and commitment to the creation of social value differentiates them from other consultancies. The Barkers team worked alongside our staff to enhance the team and accelerate our delivery of budget impacting savings and the creation of localised social value.

David Levy

Head of Strategic Procurement, Seven Force Strategic Collaboration