Contract handover

Once the successful bidder receives the signed original, this is likely to be archived for safekeeping. In accordance with ISO 9002 standard, and in particular the Contract Management requirements, the next step is now to share the contract information with the persons, departments or teams that will be working on the contract, so a copy or copies will be made available for their use.

Handover meeting

The pursuit team that worked on the tender now have the responsibility of passing on the information to the persons or departments that will be responsible for delivering the goods or services in the new contract. The nominated tender pursuit person will arrange the meeting and invite relevant persons or representatives of the involved departments. Typically this would include representatives from multiple disciplines such as legal, finance, operations, technology, sales, health and safety, logistics, etc.  

It is important that the meeting is minuted in order to have a record of what has been presented, discussed, reviewed and also who was in attendance. 

The main purpose of the meeting is to review and inform the relevant persons of the contract requirements so that all concerned can fulfill the contract in accordance with the client's expectations. Typical tasks will include items such as:

1. Identify and initiate any items that need to be handled now (e.g. the submission of a quality plan within 30 days of the start of the contract) 
2. Review all contract requirements to confirm compliance or highlight any non-conformances so that these can be addressed
3. Familiarize the involved personnel with specific contract requirements
4. Highlight any milestone dates that specify when something specific needs to be completed or delivered (in order to avoid a penalty)
5. Review the pricing model, how and when charges are applicable, invoicing instructions and if relevant how any discount structure is applied 
6. Identify any relevant contract penalties or incentives
7. Review delivery requirements such as time limits, packaging and transport terms
8. Identify any reporting requirements

The format may vary, but it may take the form of a presentation that summarizes the main points in the contract, followed by a detailed walk-through of the contract requirements, captured in a spreadsheet and used to identify what has been reviewed and its status as compliant or not and how any non-compliance will be addressed, by whom and by when. 

Audit

Together with the meeting minutes, the presentation and spreadsheet should be archived as a permanent record of the contract review and handover. This will be required at a future date if the client decides to perform a contract audit.

Contract performance plan

If the enterprise has a strategy for optimizing the commercial performance of the contract, this is an internal matter and not part of the ISO requirement, so it could therefore be handled in a separate stand-alone meeting. 

It may be convenient however, to review and discuss this during the contract handover, but if so, it should be handled as a separate activity and not included in the documentation described above. Ideally, a separate confidential presentation or document can be used, which can be separately stored and not form a part of any future client audit of the contract.