Quinin Consulting's APMEE Insights Part I

Preparing Complex Engagements for Success Begins Before the Contract and Schedules are Executed

This is the first article in a series from Quinin Consulting LLC with the goal of sharing best practices and lessons learned in Account Portfolio Management Evaluation and Enhancement (APMEE). Quinn Consulting’s advisory services have best-in-class expertise and experience in executing APMEE, which includes a recent effort that identified some $20M+ in hard dollar Revenue Recovery Opportunity (RRO) for an Account Portfolio of some five (5) accounts.    

One of the key areas of assessment provided in Quinin Consulting’s APMEE advisory services is contractual and schedule analysis. While there are many key inputs in this process, this article will focus on preparing for the contractual side, more specifically, the development of the Master Services Agreement/Contract (MSA) and secondarily the supporting schedule(s) development. 

For any organization providing solutions and services, one of the most critical steps in establishing a business relationship or partnership with a client is the contract, or more specifically, the MSA with supporting schedules. This is especially true for large complex deals or delivery efforts where there are multiple solutions and services involved (i.e., applications, business process out-sourcing, infrastructure, etc.) that must come together to ultimately provide the business and technology outcomes being sought by the client.

From a best practice point-of-view, there is a phase of Discovery and then a phase of Due Diligence to prepare for the final MSA (with supporting schedules), and these phases are highly recommended. The Discovery and Due Diligence phases should be formally agreed upon by an initial Statement of Work (SOW), with each phase broken down by scope, stakeholder and client expectations (e.g., cooperation, etc.), timeline, deliverables and timing of sign-off of deliverables by the client. 

Before the Discovery and Due Diligence phases, and prior to preliminary discussions (or sales/business development talks) with the client or account, initial client analysis should already be underway regarding:

This initial analysis should be at least one piece of providing the big-picture enlightenment of the viability of the deal and qualification of the client. 

For the Discovery phase, activities should include at least these high-level efforts:

The Due Diligence phase builds upon the Discovery phase collection activities and further synthesizes the data, information and documentation captured and should include at least these high-level efforts: 

The graphics above refer to core efforts regarding the Discovery and Due Diligence phases, but the real benefit is by conducting these phases on complex deals with multiple solutions and services involved, is you’ve built a “Foundational” layer for preparing the Business Case for Transition, Stabilization and then Transformation/Optimization efforts of the client’s enterprise. 

At this point, you should be able to tailor the MSA and supporting schedules in a manner that will provide a path forward to delivery and partnership success; however, there are factors that can and will impact the measure of success between you and the client.  We’ll touch on some of these factors below, but will also expand upon these in the next article in a week or two.

Factors to be leveraged to not only put the client and account in a position to succeed, but should also position the actual delivery team involved for success after the contract is executed include at a high level:

While there are many other factors involved in positioning a large deal with complex delivery efforts for success, the Discovery and Due Diligence phases should serve as a prudent starting point for you and your team to consider. 

About Quinin Consulting LLC

Quinn Consulting helps global clients and partners with disruptive and rapid changes in their industries. The firm provides a variety of consulting and advisory services, including software/applications (core administration, advanced analytical and predictive solutions, mobile, social and digital technologies) market evaluation, selection and implementation, portfolio and program leadership, solution assessment and visioning for technology innovators, as well as, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) information technology (IT) assessment and target integration. For more information about Quinin Consulting and our advisory services, please visit www.quininconsulting.com or email [email protected] or call 860-478-2494.