Contract and Commercial Management: the operational guide (Business Process Management)

Great book.

Starting on a positive - it's a useful guide for those who are new to a contract management role. It explains how 'contract management' fits into the broader procurement process, highlighting the important (and often overlooked) fact that contract management planning/preparation should be considered at the very start of the procurement process. That said, I doubt whether someone new to contract management, and who wants just a 'guide', will want to wade through 600+ pages, especially when only around 100 pages actually relate to the 'management' phase, ie post-contract award. I was surprised by how much of the book focused on the pre-contract award phase (ie around 500 pages). For a book of this price I was surprised by how much of the content was presented as bullet point lists (there are a lot of these). The text makes reference to all the expected (and well known) theoretical tools, eg SWOT, PESTEL, Porter's Five Forces etc, but for the price I'd really hoped to see more content on current thinking (at least current at the time of publishing). It really only sets out the use of 'standard' procurement best practice and tools - a disappointment as Id hoped this was a book on contract management that was going to offer something new to the 'body of knowledge' already available on the subject. There are very few texts devoted to general contract management practice, so this does attempt to fill that gap. It's certainly much more suited to those starting their contract management careers, rather than providing insights into current academic thinking and new tools/techniques to help more experienced contract management practitioners to fully maximise value from supplier relationships. For many years now, the media has been rife with coverage of contract failures - I doubt that this text will lead to a change in how contracts are managed.