What Will This Book Do for You? This book provides a survival manual for anyone involved in the crafting, structuring, negotiating, supporting or managing contracts involving commercial transactions of goods, services or both. It blends the practical with general legal principles and highlights best practices for supply chain professionals and anyone else involved, directly or indirectly, with the generation or management of contracts from cradle-to-grave. Even commercially wise and sophisticated organizations can be untrained and unaware of certain gaps and traps in the management of their contracts. This book addresses those pitfalls and provides lessons learned and guidance that are not typically taught at the college or even graduate school level. Experience can be hard and expensive to come by and this book provides a concentrated dose of experience that immediately raises the reader's level of sophistication and awareness for gaps and traps while providing practical solutions to pitfalls that can haunt any organization. Left unchecked, these pitfalls can lead to dysfunction and confusion; both of which can be an expensive proposition in today's competitive and uncertain economic environment. Who Should Use this Book? Supply Chain Management Professionals, Risk Managers, Insurance Experts, Project Managers, Purchasing Agents, Contract Administrators, Executives and any business or technical professionals who are involved with developing, managing or implementing projects, purchases or any complex transaction or procurement where cost, schedule and scope certainty are important. What Does This Book Cover? This book covers how the relationship of the parties affects commercial transactions and addresses the importance of upholding the integrity of the process and the contract by understanding key supply chain best practices. The book focuses on contracting strategies and approaches including how to structure requests for proposals and instructions to bidders as well as key considerations in pricing and pricing adjustments, risk management tools and techniques, the importance of defining the deliverables and outcomes, negotiation strategies and techniques, negotiating warranties and remedies, applying leadership and influencing skills to the process, how to implement sound change management as well as capturing and applying past lessons learned. In addition, special attention is given to the importance of sound "kick off" and "close out", including termination for cause or convenience techniques and other best practices.
About the Author: X. Paul Humbert. Esq. Paul Humbert is President of the Humbert Group, LLC and provides consulting services to global procurement clients with particular emphasis on: complex negotiations, strategic alliances, process improvement, risk management techniques, project management assistance, training and coaching, as well as post-execution contract management including dispute resolution. Paul holds degrees in both business and law and has extensive experience in these areas. He is an expert in structuring agreements and contract management procedures that are clear and minimize the risk of claims or non-conforming deliverables. In addition to assisting clients, Paul also teaches at the graduate school level. He is a lecturer at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Business and has also served as Adjunct Professor at both Seton Law School and Monmouth College where he taught legal and business courses. Paul has also served as an arbiter for the American Arbitration Association. Paul is a frequent lecturer and guest speaker. Contact Information: xphumbert@thehumbertgroup.net Robert C. Mastice, MSME Robert C. Mastice is Managing Director of Tri-Power Consulting Services, LLC ("Tri-Power"). Tri-Power provides services to fortune 500 companies in three areas: (a) project based contracting management / document management, (b) contingent labor contracting labor services for managed service programs (MSPs) and (c) business process modeling using custom built IT applications. Tri-Power's affiliate, Tri-Power Design, LLC provides electro-mechanical design, engineering, prototyping and manufacturing service to global companies for medical devices, consumer products as well as custom one-of-a-kind machine design, engineering and fabrication. Robert has years of experience in contract creation, negotiation and management services. In the construction industry Robert has supported clients with contract terms and scope of work crafting, contract negotiations, and document management and control services as well as post-execution contract management including backcharge, warranty, contract close out and dispute resolution. Robert holds advanced degrees in mechanical engineering and is an expert in managing the process of executing commercial transactions from "cradle-to-grave". Contact Information: robert.mastice@tripower.net