CATS® Contract management in 3 minutes

In today’s business environment and in the public sector, realization is dawning that organizations are part of complex ecosystems that are governed by a multitude of agreements that come with their own set of objectives, benefits and risks. CATS CM helps you to organize, manage and structure this on contract level and in conjunction with other processes.

CATS CM provides a proactive methodical approach to Contract Management in all business functions and is applicable for both customers and suppliers. Based on four pillars CATS CM gives a clear and practical guideline that enables the application of methodical steps for the essential focus areas of a contract and provides guidelines on who is to perform these steps.

CATS CM is a universal method for maximizing the value of contracts. It aims to bring focus to the relation and states clear functional, tactical and strategic insight in this upcoming field of play.

This book is especially interesting for:

■         managers that have regular interactions based on agreements with third parties

■         Staff in the pre and post award phases of contracts (e.g. procurement) responsible for creating and executing contracts

■         sales executives that understand the value of the long term relationship

■         customer success managers and employees that are involved in the day-to-day contract execution

■         contract and service Managers

■         CFOs and other senior finance, audit and risk executives that understand that every contract is an obligation and any obligation is a risk

■         leaders that want to be in full or complete control of their external relations.

In the past decade Contract Management has become an important focus area for any organization in the complex business ecosystems we have created. It has matured to a solid business functionthat is driven today by the upcoming role of customer success and the challenging rapid changing business climate. It has become a separate governance area. Because of this development, the need for a full-fledged and robust method has led to the development of version 4.0 of CATS CM. Based on their own experience, authors Gert-Jan Vlasveld and Linda Tonkes have developed the method further and entered deeper into the matter, bringing even more value to both sides of the spectrum.

The authors have spent the past years implementing CATS CM in several large organizations while many more companies and governmental agencies have adopted it as the basis for their processes. Edition 4.0 is a serious overhaul and expansion compared to the previous version. Emerging from a Dutch initiative it is now ready to become a global standard with clients in multiple countries.

In the method, Contract Management is defined as: all related procedures, measures, guidelines and protocols aimed at creating, managing and profitable running of a continuously increasing set of obligations. The concept of Tracking Scenarios shows how to monitor all contract management aspects with the help of detailed and structured roadmaps.

The scope of the method is Contract Management from the perspective of all related stakeholders in any business ecosystem. CATS CM is complementary to a number of globally recognized other standards that are meant for the performance of work.

CATS CM is a way of working and managing. It can be used on a small scale for just one contract or supplier or client but it is most effective as an enterprise or organization wide method.