Daily Archives: February 8, 2007

Supply Management Contract Writing, A Review Part I

Those of you following along will remember that I have reviewed three of Next Level Purchasing‘s course offerings to date: Mastering Purchasing Fundamentals (Parts I and II), Savings Strategy Development (Parts I and II), and 14 Purchasing Best Practices (Parts I and II). This course, like the last three, is also worth the time and investment for any purchasing professional looking to advance her knowledge and career with a training program that can lead to a recognized industry certification (the Senior Professional in Supply Management).

According to NLP‘s website, this course is designed to give you the skills necessary to minimize your procurement risks. Going way beyond the typical, dry explanations of contract law, through plain English examples and interactive exercises, this course is designed to teach you how to negotiate and write effective contracts and iron-clad terms and conditions.

The course promises that you will learn how to protect your organization from the disastrous effects of suppliers’ failure to perform, plus

  • How to decide if you need the protection of a contract
  • How to choose the most appropriate form of agreement
  • How to structure contracts
  • How to select, use, and develop language for methods of dispute resolution
  • How to write a contract’s key legal provisions such as indemnities and limits of liability
  • How to write a contract’s key commercial provisions such as pricing and delivery
  • How to write a contract’s key technical provisions such as specifications and warranties
  • How to make use of effective styles of contract writing
  • How to effectively proofread and organize contract revisions

… but it delivers much, much more! It also includes:

  • The primary purposes of a contract. (There are more than one!)
  • The differences between the ten most common forms of agreement.
  • Six different remedies that you can consider when writing a contract that covers what will happen if your supplier fails to perform.
  • A discussion of four different dispute resolution methods.
  • Common legal terms such as “force majeure”, “most favored nations”, and “choice of law” which have a distinct legal meaning despite the fact that they are typically not translated into English.
  • Stylistic guidelines that not only make your contracts easier to read, but reduce the number of objections your legal counsel will invariably have.

And even if you don’t write your purchasing organization’s contracts, the course is still worth much more than it costs – after all, if you don’t fully understand the language that lawyers love to use, how can you be sure that they are accurately capturing your agreements and intent?

So, after acknowledging that neither Next Level Purchasing nor Sourcing Innovation practice law, that Next Level Purchasing and Sourcing Innovation are not rendering professional legal services with regards to this (online) class, that neither Next Level Purchasing nor Sourcing Innovation will be responsible for any contract, either in whole or in part, based on any material presented in the (online) class, whether used in whole or in part, go on over to Next Level Purchasing and find out more.