Contracts & Commercial Manager
Flowbird delivers solutions for smart cities on the move. Our Smart Transport solutions can be seen in world-class cities including London, Edinburgh, Paris, New York, Sydney, Rome, Brussels and Toronto. Flowbird is present in 4,000 towns and cities around the world. We employ over 1,000 people creating and delivering effective, high quality solutions for our clients.
Our market leadership is underpinned by a continuous drive to innovate and push the frontiers of what is possible in order to make our customers more successful. As a result, we are a thriving business that is investing strongly and building the team for both new opportunities and supporting existing ones.
Summary
The Contracts & Commercial Manager’s role is to safeguard the long-term success of Flowbird by ensuring that its obligations, rights and entitlements are considered, established, understood, and preserved and that the duties and obligations of the client or subcontractor are met and their rights respected. This is a UK based role in the south of England.
Core Responsibilities:
- Develop, analyse, negotiate and finalise all kind of contracts, in coordination with the pertaining business team (e.g. sales, project, R&D, purchasing)
- Proactively identify, negotiate amendments, changes and claim and ensure their consistency with those signed with the other parties involved (customers, partners, etc.) in order to protect and improve Flowbird’s situation in collaboration with project teams
- Participate in risk/opportunity reviews by proposing action plans to reduce risks and highlighting the opportunities to maximise their achievement.
- Facilitate the resolution of pre-litigation situations and prepare any dispute with the legal department.
- Help to develop awareness of commercial management good practice internally and, where necessary, participate in training or coaching of internal staff (e.g. project managers, sales, lead engineers, etc).
- Ensure that all commitments can be met and work is performed within Flowbird guidelines and levels of authority.
- Contribute to margin optimisation with financial management, defining an appropriate policy based on risk and contract opportunities.
- Take responsibility for commercial, contractual and legal aspects of tenders:
- The Contracts & Commercial Manager will assess and respond to client contract terms and conditions, working with others as necessary to identify issues and mitigate or negotiate as appropriate.
- In tendering, the Contracts & Commercial Manager ensures that company risks are minimized and liability is managed and that critical aspects of implementation, acceptance, support and performance are considered along with the financial milestones and criteria for milestone completion.
- The Contracts & Commercial Manager is involved at the pre-sales and proposal stage of projects, especially large or complex projects, and will review contracts and prepare responses to these. They will work to help ensure that the needs of the business are aligned to ensure that our offers are attractive for our customers whilst ensuring that we protect the business and understand and mitigate any risks.
- The above may include participating in customer meetings, presentations and contract negotiations.
- Take responsibility for commercial, contractual and legal aspects of projects:
- For complex projects, the Contracts & Commercial Manager will take overall responsibility for all project commercial activities. Procurement owns the relationship with suppliers, however the Contracts & Commercial Manager will work closely with Procurement to assist in setting up contracts and reviewing the commercial risk.
- The Contracts & Commercial Manager ensures the appropriate flow-down of terms to suppliers at tendering and during project negotiations and continues to be involved throughout project execution.
- The Contracts & Commercial Manager supports the projects to identify opportunities and foresee risks in order to improve project margin and protect the business from legal and financial exposure. The Contracts & Commercial Manager works with the Project Manager to ensure that risks are managed in accordance with best practice.
- The Contracts & Commercial Manager ensures that the project team is aware of legal, contractual or regulatory requirements that they need to pay specific attention to and that these are clearly identified and managed.
- Implement and maintain effective Commercial Management procedures for the business:
- The Contracts & Commercial Manager ensures that appropriate procedures, processes and systems are in place to protect the business with regards commercial, contract and claim management. This will include introducing new processes and systems where appropriate.
- Drive the resolution of all commercial, contractual or legal issues.
- Key duties comprise the analysis and interpretation of contract terms and conditions in dealings with customers, external consortium partners, critical subcontractors and suppliers and working with engineering, financial, legal and technical teams, including on-site where necessary, in order to protect the company’s position.
- The Contracts & Commercial Manager will negotiate terms directly with clients and partners within agreed delegation of authority and parameters.
Experience:
- Ideally Membership of recognised professional association and evidence of continuing development.
- Experience of Contracts and Commercial Management of both tenders and project delivery within a similar market.
- Ability to gain understanding of the contractual or commercial implications of technical and system issues.
- Claims Management, Dispute Resolution, Risk Management and Complex contract experience.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Legal knowledge, analysis and reasoning skills.
- Ability to align business requirements and legal duties.
- Contract management skills.
- Negotiation skills and conflict resolution skills.
- Project risk management.
- Collaboration and teamwork.
- Interpersonal skills.
- Decision making skills.
The ability to pay attention to quality and detail without losing sight of the bigger picture will be critical to success in this role.
Education:
- Ideally a relevant degree level qualification
(e.g. in Law or Legal, Commercial/Contract Management, Business Administration
Company Benefits:
· 25 days holiday, plus Bank holidays, with the option to purchase up to 35 days per annum
· Up to 6% contributory Company pension scheme
· Life assurance of x4 annual salary
· Health Cash Plan
· Discounted gym membership with a company subsidy
· 6 months Company sick pay
· Employee discounts
· Employee assistance programme available 24/7
· Flexible Benefits platform giving you the option to purchase additional benefits including critical illness cover, additional life assurance, dental insurance, health screening, cycle to work scheme, personal car leasing, breakdown cover, purchase of technology
· Paid Employee Volunteering days
· Hybrid working
· Additional Maternity / Paternity leave
· Free onsite car parking
· Free tea/coffee