Commercial Assurance: Risk Management Solutions

Properly managing your third-party contracts is an essential aspect of commercial risk management that can help you avoid financial and credibility damages.

Commercial risk management: Third party relationship contracts

Today's global market economy demands greater dependence on third party relationships. And given the critical nature of these associations, establishing and managing the contracts associated with them will enable you to improve their commercial outcomes.

What you need to know about commercial assurance

Commercial assurance involves identifying, validating and managing the risks associated with third party contracts. Effective commercial risk management gives you the opportunity to drive savings, process enhancements and knowledge transfer, while also ensuring compliance.

Inadequate third party contract management practices can hurt your bottom line and increase the risks of financial losses, damage to your company's reputation and possible regulatory issues.

The ideal third party contract life cycle:

Contract risk-based analysis and channel strategy

Does your commercial risk management strategy adresss the inherent risks within third party contracts? Having a proper understanding of the type of contractual agreements to use in different scenarios will help you bring to light all the potential risks within your contracts.

Cost reduction and recovery

What contingency plans do you have in place if a third party relationship doesn’t work out? Some contracts can lead to value leakage, but with the right methodologies and audits, you can perform contract reviews to uncover non-compliance issues that will help you recover cash.

Contract and commercial risk assessment

How do you determine whether your company can work effectively with your proposed partners? Being able to identify contract negotiation fee risks, while getting help initiating and executing contracts, will reduce the risk of having your company's reputation damaged—an integral aspect of commercial risk management.

Ongoing contract portfolio assessment

Do you have the appropriate commercial risk solutions in place to satisfy both regulators and stakeholders? Designing a program specifically to improve your overall contract management processes, while enhancing your internal assurance functions, gives you the chance to eliminate contract inconsistencies.

Our commercial assurance practice

Contracts are the backbone of what can often be very complex relationships between you and your vendors. At PwC we maintain that by taking a structured approach to commercial risk management and third party contracts, you'll experience significant financial and operational benefits.

We take a full-service approach to commercial assurance. So depending on your specific scenario, we can provide one-time investigative services, a recurring monitoring audit function or complete assistance in transforming your internal skills. And we can give you the tools to help build your capabilities to press forward independently with commercial assurance programs.