Over the course of the negotiation, different risks will be identified. It is important to document these risks as they occur. Some risks will be mitigated through agreement with the supplier during the drafting process. For the risks where it is not commercially acceptable to the supplier to mitigate these, it is important that they are considered prior to the contract being signed. If necessary, they may need to be confirmed acceptable through internal governance procedures. Having the risks clearly documented and working with internal audit and other governance bodies during the negotiation will make this final stage easier. Considerable time and effort are spent training procurement personnel to be excellent negotiators, but much less time is dedicated to equipping those individuals to run large multi-stage negotiations that extend over multiple months, rather than weeks. Many of the points covered, although focussed on IT Services Contracts, are equally applicable to Service Contracts for areas other than IT.