The Commercial Manager's Summer School In-house Training

Course overview

Successful commercial managers enable a business to maximise profitability by making informed decisions in a proactive and decisive manner, to satisfy customers, utilise resources to their maximum and effectively manage supplier relationships. This enhances a business’ competitiveness while simultaneously minimising exposure to unacceptable levels of risk and liability.   It is a crucial function that, if undertaken well, enables overall success and growth of a business.

This practical and interactive summer school has been specially designed to give commercial and contracts managers the knowledge and skills they need to understand this multifaceted role and become a highly-valued member of their business. 

There are many elements of contracts and associated documentation that a commercial manager needs to understand to manage them effectively, while keeping stakeholders on-board and mitigating against the numerous risks. 

The expert trainer will take you through the elements of a legally binding contract and provide you with best practice methodology to enable you  to easily identify possible areas of risk, both in the drafting of a contract and selecting suppliers. 

You will learn the importance of your role as a facilitator, knowing what questions need to be asked of stakeholders and suppliers, and what information needs to be collated, to understand fully the impact and probability of potential risks and what options are available to mitigate or reduce the criticality of those risks. 

You will learn how to undertake effective negotiations aiming for a win-win outcome and also practical proactive risk management of project documents. This in turn creates a strong, positive contractual relationship, appreciating the interdependency nature of that relationship, with practical remedies to ensure your projects are always moving forward and progressing, rather than being hindered with delays and disputes. Demonstrating that an effective commercial manager can add value by ensuring goods relationships are maintained, cooperation enhanced and avoiding any potential litigation as the contract is created to resolve any dispute.    

You will learn how to apply a logical, systematic and comprehensive approach to reading, negotiating, managing and implementing a contract so that you are confident in your role and contribution, and fully appreciate what is required of you, your team, all stakeholders and the other contracting party(ies) to satisfy the legal obligations laid out in the legal, but also practical, contract.

Drawing on real-life experiences and using many workshop-style exercises, case studies and examples, the expert trainer will focus on giving you the necessary knowledge, tools and processes to be able to draft, review, negotiate and manage contracts and make them work for you and your organisation, not against you.

This course is part of our Commercial Management training courses series which aims to help individuals gain confidence in a range of areas surrounding contract law, and broader business management knowledge.

Benefits of attending

By attending this summer school you will:

• Understand how a contract adds value to the management of a project
• Get to grips with how best to manage contracts and stakeholders
• Learn how to develop a successful procurement strategy and negotiation approach
• Understand the risks around tendering and the associated documentation
• Boost your knowledge of risk management and contingency planning
• Enhance your relationship management skills
• Recognise the role of proactive project planning and management
• Build on your negotiation skills and tactics to secure the outcomes you need

Who should attend?

• Commercial managers
• Contracts managers and engineers
• Procurement managers
• Project / bid managers and technical staff
• Finance managers
• Business development managers
• Contract administrators, officers and specialists

This highly experiential summer school is a must-attend event if you are:

• Managing the execution of commercial contracts
• Accountable and/or responsible for the successful completion of contracts
• Drafting and negotiating contract documents
• Unclear of the obligations that contracts place legally on you and your organisation
• In need of a refresher on the risks associated with a project

This practical programme is presented without the use of legal jargon.

There will be plenty of time for interaction with the expert trainer and opportunities to network with other delegates, so you can share experiences and get answers to your questions.