Contract governance and compliance

Contracting for success

Whether you’re delivering projects, managing estates, outsourcing services, maximising value from your Intellectual Property rights, managing service level agreements or administering third parties, the ultimate success of the organisation depends on the performance of many individual contracts.

If you can create value and enhance the performance of your contracts, you create value and enhance the performance of the organisation itself. We bring highly experienced industry experts and innovative technology together to maximise performance for organisations working in complex contract environments. We will help you prioritise expenditure and make sure you make the right investment decisions, get the most out of your contracts once they’re up and running, and effectively meet legal and regulatory compliance requirements.

Support through every stage

We help organisations maximise value creation through their contracts at every stage of their life:

Investment and expenditure decisions. Balancing expenditure demands with budget constraints is a challenge for every organisation. Tough decisions need to be made – spending must be prioritised carefully to maximise performance. In this environment it’s essential that every decision and every contract is as good as it can be.

Operating and financial performance. Contracts that fail to deliver on their promises erode value for the organisation, increase costs and can even derail strategy. Large contracts, often reliant on huge volumes of data, are part of the fabric of many modern organisations. If they’re unhealthy, performance will suffer.

Legal and regulatory compliance. The compliance landscape is constantly evolving, punctuated by significant developments such as GDPR. It’s essential to understand the changing environment, especially for those in regulated industries.

How can PwC help?

Our experts have detailed experience of contract management and delivery in a wide range of sectors and environments, in both the private and public sector. We are a diverse team – drawn from capital projects, technology, IT, licensing and investigations – united by our deep knowledge of complex contracts. We are here to support you through contract creation, negotiation, management and resolution of any disputes.

Case studies

Prioritise capital expenditure and support strategic cost reduction decisions

We worked collaboratively with a UK Government department to support them with their strategic savings initiative - to find nearly £6bn of efficiencies.

We delivered efficiencies in two waves, each lasting six months. During Wave 1, our four projects had an addressable spend of over £6bn. We identified over 30% of savings, with almost £500m being realised within six months. In Wave 2 we delivered across three new projects, identifying over £1bn of savings, and worked closely with the client to ensure there are realistic plans in place to deliver the efficiencies over the next two years.

Support the consideration or delivery of complex contracts, projects or programmes

We worked alongside a UK Government department, supporting the delivery and reform of their most complex, innovative and demanding contracts, which were valued in excess of £2bn. Our team played a key role in transforming the way that complex contracts are managed across the department, delivering substantial cost savings and reducing risk. We also helped to embed enhanced commercial practices and upskill the department’s own in-house team, to make sure that our work would continue to deliver value for money even after our teams had concluded the project.

Support you through contract disputes, delays, or high-value contractual claims

We were instructed by lawyers acting on behalf of the owner of a £multi-bn rail link, which had suffered severe delays during construction and was in arbitration proceedings. The schedule was highly complex, comprising over 10,000 individual activities over a five year period. We undertook independent analysis of the schedule and provided expert testimony to the tribunal on the causes of the delay.

Our work helped our client – the provincial government – understand the relative strength of its position to the counterparty – a consortium of international contractors – and helped the tribunal develop an informed award.

Deliver the contract value or benefits stakeholders expect

Our client entered into a renewal contract for the provision of telecommunication services and networks with an annual spend of £30m. We performed an independent examination and identified (i) Incorrect application of terms, rate cards, and tariffs (ii) Errors in manual calculations; and, (ii) Incorrect charging of costs.

Our client was able to seek recoveries of over £3m as well as ensuring that negotiated price reductions were correctly implemented going forward.

Make sure you are receiving the royalties you deserve

We worked with a client company that was concerned that patent-infringing products were entering the US market with the result that they were missing out on royalties that were due to them. The company suspected the infringement was significant, but could not put a clear figure on the volumes involved. Our analysts used publicly-available shipping data, working through millions of shipping records to show that large volumes of potentially infringing products were entering the US – and also identifying the source of those products and where they were being shipped to. This information helped our client focus their efforts on tackling the infringement, passing on detailed knowledge to customs on what to look for, as well as other organisations that warranted further investigation.

Meet requirements for regulated processes and governance

PwC have supported a range of software vendors develop, grow, mature and deliver global software compliance programs designed to protect and further leverage their intellectual property.

Completing over 5,000 third party license reviews globally - 2,000 in EMEA alone - our team have extensive experience and knowledge for which we are recognised by our clients as a market leader in the field.

Our results consistently adds value and create a substantial return on investment which on average is 16:1.

Contact us

Ranjit Auluk

Ranjit Auluk

Rights Management, PwC United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)7803 853419

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