Contract Insights

The end of the fiscal year is quickly approaching.  As such, now is the perfect time for public organizations and government agencies to invest their remaining budget before it goes to waste.  Discover why your organization or agency should use its remaining budget to invest in contract management software - whose leading-edge functionality and user-friendly tracking and reporting tools are the gifts that keep on giving, allowing your organization to proactively prepare for the next fiscal year-end and other important, recurring events and opportunities.

Government contract management can be divided into three overarching phases: procurement and acquisition planning, the sourcing and award, and post-award contract administration.  The first two phases typically enjoy the most time, attentiveness, and financial investment.  However, the neglect of the third stage - post-award management - as a tertiary duty can leave your organization unsupported and en route toward needless compliance violations, increased risk variables, and missed opportunities.  It could be argued that the post award contract process is the most essential stage for your government organization, but it has notoriously been abandoned to insufficient visibility and a lack of allocated resources.  Read this article to learn how to face the challenges of post award contract management head on with an actionable post award contract management software solution.

NIGP (The Institute for Public Procurement) will be hosting its annual forum virtually August 24th – 28th, 2020.  CobbleStone will be exhibiting its leading-edge government contract management, sourcing, bid management, and procurement software in NIGP’s virtual exhibit hall.  CobbleStone’s software experts will answer questions from attendees and demonstrate how contract management software can help solve government purchasing challenges.  NIGP’s celebratory 75th Annual Forum will feature procurement-focused sessions, a virtual exhibit hall, breakout sessions, networking opportunities, inspirational keynote speakers, a virtual happy hour, and other engagements.

U.S. Federal Contractors - no matter which government agency or department they are contractually involved with - can face several challenges throughout the contract lifecycle.  With many different tasks to perform, there is a lot of room for errors or missteps that may lead to contract lifecycle bottlenecks, compliance challenges, regulatory violations, wasted time, and lost revenue.  Luckily, government contract management software can help.  Here’s how.

Government supply chain management is a multi-faceted, involved process – including the handling of RFIs, RFPs, and RFQs.  Supply chain RFx management responsibilities may include accumulating vendor proposals, collecting quotes to compare vendors and contractors, establishing a database of vendors and contractors, signing off on approvals before selecting them, managing contracts, and much more.  Handling these different tasks with separate manual processes can make for a disorganized approach that can potentially lead to lost opportunities, supply chain lifecycle bottlenecks, improper vendor and contractor selection, wasted time, and revenue loss.  Luckily, integrated contract management software solutions can help.  Here are three ways to improve government supply chain RFPs.

As the end of the traditional local government fiscal year draws near, city, state, and other public agencies must make sure that they are leveraging their budgets by investing in software tools for streamlined, robust, and transparent contract management, purchasing, and sourcing for current and future needs.  Here are five tools that can be used for simple, user-friendly, and powerfully integrated government contract management, procurement, and sourcing processes.

DBE supplier tracking becomes easier when the right tools are in place.

Whether you’re a local municipality, city, state, or federal agency, chances are you have a goal defined for awarding contracts to disadvantaged business enterprises (DBE). Government agencies operate on “good faith” that they will make the conscious effort to consider these businesses when awarding new contracts. The problem, like managing any other contract, is the work involved to ensure that all criteria is being met and certifications are processed.

Why Communication can Make or Break a Successful Acquisition and Improve Contract Management

Improving Contract Management is not an easy process. There are numerous steps that are involved with the acquisition process. From identifying the initial needs, all the way down to monitoring performance once a contract has been awarded will require multiple people – sometimes from different departments – to get involved. If too many people are contributing to the acquisition process, but aren’t making the effort to communicate with one another internally then the process can be unsuccessful from the start. This creates a communication gap. Not only is effective communication imperative to a successful acquisition process and improving contract management, but an open dialogue with the industry and potential vendors is too.