·         Overview: what is a commercial management?

·         Tools supporting effective commercial management and maximising value

·         How we use contracts to correctly document commercial relationships

·         The top 10 mistakes in commercial management and how to overcome them

·         Overview of the complete contract management lifecycle

·         Pre-negotiation planning

·         Formal negotiations

·         Post-negotiation

·         Common traits of expert negotiators.

·         Preparing for Negotiations

·         Strategies implemented during the procurement process that may affect negotiations.

·         Understanding the objectives of both parties.

·         Environmental and situational factors that may affect negotiations and how these can be used to your advantage.

·         Defining ‘strategy’ and ‘tactics’ and selecting a suitable approach.

·         What goes wrong before we have started. Why commercial negotiiations and relationships can fail before we have even begun

·         The importance of agreeing and negotiating quality requirements in commercial scenarios

·         Developing and agreeing statements of work that deliver better relationships for both parties

·         Choosing the approach to build the right relationship to deliver your outcomes in an amicable manner

·         The role of commercial negotiations internally within your organisation

·         The identification of stakeholders and their prioritization

·         Tools and techniques for understanding and negotiating across stakeholder

·         Understanding stakeholder needs

·         Communicating effectively with your stakeholder community

·         Developing colleagues and suppliers as stakeholders

·         Negotiation approaches to help align stakeholder interests

·         Thomas-Kilman conflict mode instrument

·         Building a scope of work – input, output and outcome approaches. Which is right and how to negotiate and agree this with your internal stakeholders

·         Negotiating SLAs and KPIs to meet your stakeholders needs

·         How the other party evaluates opportunities that come their way

·         Maximise success and minimise the impact of a risk-based negotiation

·         Their rationale for wanting to work with you and how to build their confidence in their ability to work with you

·         Why do they sometimes refuse your proposals before your even get to a negotiation?

·         Their bid preparation approach and costing decisions. How can you negotiate with them to influence their quality?

·         Understanding how contract terms can be viewed and their role in driving good and bad commercial contracts

·         Active terms (terms that affect cost and schedules)

·         Passive terms (terms that affect risk)

·         Conditions precedent, trigger points for an action or activity

·         Conditions subsequent, trigger conditions to suspend an action of activity

·         Ensuring all parties align the negotiated terms and conditions to the required behaviours of both parties for the commercial relationship

·         Principles and best practices of negotiation

·         Understand the internal inhibitors to successful negotiated outcomes and how to control them

·         Presuppositions of negotiations

·         Understanding the other side in the negotiation

·         Developing a negotiations strategy

·         Managing emotions through negotiation stages

·         What negotiators must understand before commencing a negotiation

·         Communication strategies, effective question and answering techniques.

·         Understand the options for negotiation approaches

·         Understand advantages and disadvantages of each

·         Define the most common negotiation styles and how each may be influenced and managed.

·         Positional negotiation

·         Principled negotiations

·         Other approaches to negotiation

·         Identify your natural negotiation style and recognizing that of others.

·         Consciously altering your negotiation style.

·         When to use an approach, the risks and opportunities of alternative approaches

·         Understanding motivations in negotiations

·         The use of experts in negotiation

·         Issues of relative power and the balance of power

·         Opening the negotiation

·         Responding to an opening offer

·         Tactics, strategies and ethics

·         Various tactics, tricks and ploys

·         Counter-tactics to re-align the balance of power in negotiations.

·         Selecting appropriate tactics to suit your unique circumstances.

·         Common causes for deadlocks and techniques to avoid them, and the process to work through them to reach agreement

·         The “Last gap” and approaches to close a negotiation

·         Best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA)

·         The consequences of loss

·         Goals, fall backs and walk away positions

·         Nibbling and add on offers

·         Behavioral analysis and proving worth

·         Strategies and ethics

·         Tossing a coin – is it ever done?

·         Contract targets and other measurements

·         Regular management of the contract

·         The role of evidence to enhance your power

·         Initiating and documenting change

·         Contract claims, disputes and their cause

·         Resolving common operational disputes

·         Avoiding a dispute and the formal dispute resolution process

•      Measuring and managing different supplier segments

•      Attributes of a strategic supplier partnership

•      The value of enhanced supplier relationship management

•      How to coordinate and collaborate with your suppliers

•      Top tips for developing closer relationships with suppliers