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The Great Awakening
For commercial lawyers, the practice of law is transforming. Acting as a semi-independent advisor on specialist risk and legal issues is no longer enough. Today, the business expects much broader appreciation of opportunities and challenges - and that the support and contracts produced by lawyers will directly contribute to the best possible outcome.
APMG and IACCM join forces to deliver professional Contract and Commercial Management training and examinations worldwide
The International Association for Contract & Commercial Management (IACCM) has partnered with APMG to provide two new qualifications in contract and commercial management. The first is 'Fundamentals of Contract and Commercial Management', designed specifically for the non-contracts, general business professional who needs a basic understanding of the contract management lifecycle. The second - 'Contract and Commercial Management Associate Certification' - is for contract management and commercial managers, as well as legal, compliance business and regional heads.
UK Government adds IACCM Certified Programme to its Learning and Development Offer
The UK Pan Government profession group responsible for the professional curriculum, the Commercial Capability Group, has agreed the inclusion of IACCM's Commercial and Contract Certification Programme in the list of approved learning offerings in December 2014.
What is best practice in Most Favored Customer clauses?
An IACCM member posted this question on the IACCM Forum. I am not a fan of such clauses: they always were open to manipulation and today they are even more so. They strike me as a lazy and ill-considered approach to a legitimate issue - and they carry various dangers that can undermine value.
A New Way to Manage the Mountains of Contracts
Contracts are the preball Cinderella of the legal profession, doing the grunt work in the shadows of showier legal business. Everything depends on them, but they rarely get the high level attention they deserve. It's time for contracts to have their glass-slipper moment.
The evolution of relational contracts
As we all know, too many contracts fail to deliver expected results. Growing complexity, market volatility, increased interdependence - there are multiple factors that contribute to those failures and are forcing change in the way that organizations interact. Relationships are often too vague, too reliant upon individual memory, to be sustainable ways of managing the performance of commitments and obligations. Contracts, on the other hand, are often too limited in the ground they cover and too difficult to understand and interpret. Traditional approaches to relationship management and contract management are no longer 'fit for purpose'.
A paradigm shift for contracting
Every audience that I ask agrees that change is occurring at an ever-faster pace. Yet when it comes to the impact of change, most tend to see it in terms of greater complexity, additional workload or confused priorities. There are few who can express it in terms of longer-term implications to their job or its relevance and value.
Increased risks bring unexpected consequences
As corporations face growing levels of risk, many people anticipated an explosion of demand for legal resources to assist its management. Yet the market feedback I am receiving suggests, with notable exceptions, that is not happening - in fact, the reverse is often true.
Contract Management Benchmarks
Did you know that monitoring compliance remains a key focus for contract management groups and the most common area for reporting? Would you have guessed that only about 8% of organizations typically succeed in always imposing their standard terms or that, for the average company, around one third of contracts are completed without any negotiated amendment?
IACCM provides executives and practitioners with advisory, research and benchmarking services, contract management certification and training for contracts, commercial and relationship management professionals. IACCM is a non-profit membership organization that supports innovation and collaboration in meeting the demands of today's global trading relationships and practices.
