The Determine

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Empowering Decisions

Good contracts make good relationships.

Interesting snippet from a Gallup article (undated) that I read recently: Gallup finds that customers increasingly expect suppliers to possess the deepest and timeliest information on their most important business issues. These include the economics of customers’ businesses, emerging challenges within customers’ industries and trends within a supplier’s customer portfolio . What’s interesting is that they refer to supplier/customer dynamics as “partnerships” instead of just “relationships.” Optimizing those partnerships requires integrated supplier management and contract management.

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3rd-party risk management starts before the onboarding process.

One of the things that stood out the most in our recent webinar with Ardent Partners, CPO Rising 2018: The Age of Intelligence, is the critical role that data intelligence needs to play across organizations. In fact, data visibility and improved analytics stands as one of the biggest strategic goals that CPOs see as holding the most potential to drive performance improvement . While CPO Rising 2018 focused more on leveraging data as a way to add value, when you’re talking about data visibility it’s hard not to think of the risk management potential it represents.

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Understanding compliance needs related to the General Data Protection Regulation.

Without fail, my inbox is filled every morning with news, updates, tips and dire predictions about GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and the coming impact on companies and their providers. GDPR is an urgent issue, for sure, but the constant barrage of information can be overwhelming. That’s why when I come across a source or article that brings clarity, it’s worth sharing.

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If February DetermiNews could be summed up in one word, it would be “contracts.” This month, starting with our IACCM webinar on January 31, looked at contracts and how to best manage them with technology, internal processes and C-Suite level strategic focus. Contracts represent relationships, revenue and risk to every organization. Making sure yours maximize the first two and mitigate the third is what Determine does for a growing number of leading companies across industry verticals.

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Financial Services (FinServ) organizations – banks, insurance companies, wealth management firm, wirehouses – are constantly trying to find a balance between regulatory mandates and expectations, and operational efficiency. Massive supplier data breaches seem like they have become an almost regular occurrence (when they’re reported), customer privacy and data laws are becoming more stringent (GDPR), and predatory behavior by suppliers and vendors is an ongoing issue. Certainly, the porous nature of globalization isn’t making things any easier. With all that to contend with, it’s critical to remember that you can pin the blame for risk on third parties, not the responsibility for it.

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How to make friends and influence outcomes

Procurement does not have an easy job. We function as the spending conscience of the enterprise. When a contract is going to be awarded, we make sure a careful selection process is followed and that every specification or requirement associated with additional cost earns its place. We ensure that incumbent suppliers deserve renewed business, and push all suppliers to perform their best on behalf of the company. As important as all those things are, it can often leave procurement looking like the “skunk at the garden party” from an internal procurement stakeholder perspective.

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You don’t have to be a corporate general counsel to know that managing contracts can be complicated and time consuming. While almost every contract starts with a request, and ends (hopefully) with renewal, there’s a lot that needs to go on — and sometimes doesn’t — in between. That’s where an integrated and automated contract management process comes in.

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Our recent webinar with IACCM, Contract Management – Beyond the Expected, raised a lot of interesting and varied points about the need for contract lifecycle management, and the potential complexity involved. Especially around data visibility – or lack of it, what Sean Delaney, VP of Sales at Determine, called “data disaggregation.” Which is a fancy-pants way of saying your data is a hot mess.

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I recently shared my initial thoughts about the news that Carillion, the 2nd largest construction company in the UK, had gone into liquidation because it could not secure the funding required to stay in operation.

As a reminder, Carillion is a private sector firm that provided a wide array of public services across Britain. They served lunches in public schools and provided maintenance to prisons; They provided cleaning and foodservice in hospitals, and they maintained roads. Perhaps most importantly, they did all of this through a huge network of subcontractors and partners, many of whom are now facing financial difficulties in the wake of the Carillion collapse. By some estimates, up to 30,000 companies could be affected.

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If January is any indication of the year ahead, it’s going to be a busy one. From GDPR rising to Carillion collapsing, the expanding role of contract management (and the need for alerts) and the changes coming in the realm of procurement technology, we covered a lot of ground this month.

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