Service Level Agreements & Performance-based Contracts
The essential Contacting and SLA course in which contract management, negotiation, administration and SLA’s are laid bare!
Success in the increasingly challenging business environment, now more than ever, requires ‘smart’ out and insource contracting the delivers value, adds to and protect the business bottom line.
This highly interactive two-day training programme has been specially designed to provide you with a comprehensive guide to establishing, developing and managing robust service level agreements and business partnerships.
This “must attend” workshop will guide participants through legal and business jargon to expose the power of performance based contracts and SLAs, their negotiation, design and drafting.
Learn how to establish winning contracts and SLAs that
- secure long-term mutually profitable partnerships,
- exceed customer expectations,
- capture ever-increasing global market share,
- beat the competition to the market, and
- reducing cost of revenue.
In-depth topics include:
- Understanding the business implications of service contracts and SLAs
- How to identify the key areas where SLAs are critical in your organisation
- Key considerations in selecting the right service provider
- How to negotiate the best deal
- A comprehensive guide to the role of the agreement/contact
- Establishing benchmarks for measuring the quality of performance
- Ensuring your formal agreements promote service excellence
- A detailed guide to formulating an effective service contract
- Understanding the contents of the agreement/contract
- How to remedy a failure to perform
- How to manage the working relationship effectively
Your course leader
Gavin Weiman is a highly-experienced attorney, consultant and training facilitator, with extensive (over 25 years) legal experience and (over 18 years) business consulting and training facilitation experience. Gavin has been providing legal and contract centric consulting services, training and skills transfer services to commercial business, public entities and other consulting organisations and training organizations. His special area of interest is contracting and the law and its relationship to business and the economic world. Gavin is the originator of Contract Centric Management tm.
Learn from real-world SLA case studies
The focus of the programme will be centred on providing you with practical knowledge that you can utilise in practice. In order to give you the maximum benefit from the training, we have incorporated a series of “real-life” SLA case studies taken from a variety of industry sectors:
- IT / software
- Transportation
- Utilities
- Construction
- Retail
- Security
- Catering
- HR
Who should attend?
- Managers involved in the outsourcing or contracting out process
- Commercial directors and managers, legal advisors and purchasing or operational staff who liaise with purchasers or providers
- Procurement and service managers
- Financial and risk managers
- Those responsible for managing supplier / client relationships
- Managers involved in the provision of internal and shared services for your organisation
- Those involved in the preparation of bids and negotiation of service contracts as purchaser or as supplier
- Marketing, sales, commercial and contract staff of service providers
- Key account managers of service providers
Understanding the Business Implications of Service Contracts and SLAs
- Why have someone else provide the service?
Identifying the advantages and disadvantages of out-sourcing services
- Defining an SLA or a Service Contract
- Essential elements of any service agreement
- Measuring the quality of an agreement
- Handling the human resource issues
Effective Bidding to Sell your Services
- Pre-bid activities to help win the business
- Making the business case to justify your bid
- Understanding the client’s bid selection criteria
- Producing tenders with a better chance of winning
- The value of a post-bid autopsy, win or lose
Selecting the Right Service Provider
- Pre-bid activities to help the selection process
- Establishing your selection criteria
- Essential information you need to give to the bidders
- Selecting the right procurement strategy and negotiating tactics
- Advantages and disadvantages of partnering with an external service provider
- Post-tender briefing for the winner and the losers
Getting the Best Deal
- Identifying and securing Win/Win solutions
- Guidelines on preparation and planning before a meeting
- How to evaluate the negotiable issues
- Improve your power base and exercise control
The Risk/Price Trade-off in any Deal
- Recognising the likely sources and causes of risk
- Identifying and evaluating the key risks
- Allowing for anticipated risks at the bid stage
- Identifying actions for cost-effectively treating risks
The Role of the Agreement/Contract
- Differences between an SLA and a service contract
- Common characteristics of an SLA and a service contract
- Financial aspects of the agreement
- Auditing rights for the purchaser
Measuring the Quality of Service Provision
- Incorporating incentives and “penalties” against benchmarks
- Performance regimes and KPIs (key performance indicators)
- Conflict management and dispute resolution procedures
- Exit plans and seamless transition on termination of the agreement
Formation of a Service Contract
- Aspects and characteristics of contract law
- Controlling who makes contractual commitments and how
- What do heads of agreement or memoranda of understanding actually mean
- What is the status of a purchase order, letter of intent, instruction to proceed, and verbal instructions
Contents of the Agreement/contract
- Identifying the documents that form part of the agreement
- Using your company’s standard terms of contract
- Quality and warranty, implied and explicit terms
- Model Form and negotiated contract conditions
- The implications of the Unfair Contract Terms Act Remedies Available for a Failure to Perform
- How a service provider can effectively limit or exclude liability
- Is the service provider liable for “consequential” losses?
- Understanding and using liquidated damages for performance shortfalls
- Relief from obligations because of “Force Majeure”
- The additional risks of international contracts
- Using termination clauses safely and effectively
Managing the Working Relationship
- Professional contractual relationships – the rules
- The problems and opportunities at the launch of a new agreement
- Managing and controlling internal and external communication
- The value of regularly reviewing the relationship itself