Are we setting up contracts to succeed?
One of the findings from our recent South East Consortium Procurement AM session, PA23: Is It Working?, was that 56% of respondents said their organisation had entered into a contract in the last year that they did not feel could succeed.
This isn’t necessarily a reflection of poor procurement practice. More often, it highlights the realities many organisations face: compressed timescales, changing priorities, limited resources and increasing delivery pressures.
However, it does raise an important question.
What conditions need to be in place for a contract to succeed?
Successful outcomes are rarely achieved through procurement activity alone. They are built on strong planning, realistic requirements, meaningful stakeholder engagement, clear performance expectations and sufficient time to mobilise effectively.
At FFT, we often see the strongest contracts emerge where procurement is brought into the conversation early, allowing organisations to move from procurement to proactive delivery planning.
