emergnContract Introduces Lean and Agile Principles to Contract Negotiation to Optimize Client-Customer Relationships
June 3, 2010 - New York and London – emergn <http://www.emergn.com/>, a global professional services and business agility firm, today announced that the company has introduced emergnContract, the company’s latest offering to foster mutually beneficial, predictable and repeatable client-vendor relationships. As a direct response to requests from emergn’s global clients, emergnContract introduces proven lean and agile principles into the contract procurement and negotiation processes to foster win-win relationships for all parties.
emergn noticed that many systemic issues within an organization were connected to the original contracts signed with their various vendors. The framework for current legal service contracts often creates conflicts for both the client and the vendor. This conflict has resulted in clients switching from Time & Material contracts to Fixed-Price contracts and back again. The overall challenge facing organizations is to build sufficient flexibility into contracts to accommodate change while maintaining the quality of services provided.
Introducing agile to contractual relationships means that both the client and vendor can look to increase the level of collaboration, provide protocols to address issues as they arise, set responsibility expectations and increase the probability of fostering mutually beneficial relationships. Contracts based on agile principles are designed to minimize the risk of the relationship between the parties becoming defensive and polarized. This structure places the responsibility for managing the scope of work with the client and allows the vendor to focus their attention on delivering the highest value work to the client.
“emergnContract refocuses the attention of service contracts on the delivery date, not the scope of work, with the understanding that scopes almost always change,” said Phil Black, Chief Operating Officer of emergn. “We are able to introduce change into the working relationship based on key agile principles without adding additional cost to the client so we can focus on the highest value items.”
emergnContract was developed in partnership with some of the legal industry’s strongest proponents of agile methodologies. A combination of decades of legal expertise and emergn’s proven ability to introduce meaningful change programs across the enterprise will be invaluable in mentoring the legal and procurement functions of organizations on how to contract for agile.
“The legal and procurement functions in organizations are the last remaining and largest barriers to the adoption of agile principles on a commercial basis,” said Susan Atkinson, Legal Director at gallenalliance Solicitors. “emergnContract will now arm clients with the necessary tools and processes to enter into contracts with external third parties to procure solutions based on agile principles. emergnContract facilitates the evaluation of agile vendors in a tendering situation, the negotiation of a contract that both reflects the underlying solution whilst providing adequate protection to the position of each party and the ongoing management of the contract.
About emergn
emergn is a global, professional services and business agility firm that blends agile and lean principles to optimize the way organizations develop and deliver solutions across the enterprise. By offering a unique blend of agile and lean methodologies, emergn operates as a thought leader in helping enterprises solve their complex organizational and IT business problems. As the leader in providing enterprise-wide enablement, emergn has secured a strong benchmark of revenue and forecasted growth, and has earned an impressive list of partners, including British Airways <http://www.emergn.com/2009/11/emergn-builds-blueprint-for-british-airways%E2%80%99-agile-enablement/> , Deutsche Telekom, Standard Life <http://www.emergn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/EM-Standard-Life-Case-Study.pdf> , British Telecom <http://www.emergn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/EM-BT-Design-Case-Study.pdf> , HBOS <http://www.emergn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/EM-HBOS-Case-Study.pdf> , and Centrica. Based in New York and London, emergn also has offices in Dublin and Guangzhou. For more information, visit www.emergn.com <http://www.emergn.com/> or follow emergn on Twitter at http://twitter.com/emergn.
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