The success of the post close period will depend to a large extent on the Authority's ability to act as an intelligent customer with real insight in relation to contract management. This will only be possible where good knowledge management practices lead to high levels of team effectiveness and capability. This will also bring secondary benefits by reducing the Authority's dependence on advisers' knowledge and thereby reducing external advisory costs.
The Contract Management Team will also be better placed to defend the commercial positions in the Contract and negotiate effectively when necessary if they use knowledge management techniques to retain a good understanding of market tactics and are able to support their positions with hard evidence and benchmarks. This is vital when combating price creep and double counting of costs in exercises such as market testing.
Dealing with FoI/EIR requests can be a major workstream on some projects at certain times when the project is in the public eye. If project information is effectively recorded and easily retrieved and then maintained to support the typical requests anticipated in the future there can be a real time/resource saving in the long term. Establishing and then consistently applying a position on what counts as commercially sensitive information is also an opportunity to save time and resource. Once this is done sharing the position taken with others in the Authority is a good policy.
Good record keeping also enhances the Authority's ability to prove its position and defend any proceedings should they be necessary.