Why the Brexit trade deal requires good supply chain management.

The UK and European Union finally announced the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement and with the new trade agreements in place, and you may find that you can still do most of what you did before but it’s just taking a little bit longer and it’s a bit more painful.

Shortages in supply chain and supply chains falling through has severely affected some industries, with 95% of all companies seeking new ways of engaging and communicating with customers and suppliers as a result of COVID-19 and Brexit. However, good contracts management and awareness of the roles and responsibilities of those businesses in your supply chain may help alleviate that pain so you can work more stress-free.

Brexit will put forward an unprecedented amount of legal and regulatory change that will impact your organisation, specifically the contracts you have in places with various suppliers; and an effective system for managing and reporting on your contracts is the best weapon for dealing with these legislative changes and mitigating risk. At a time when many teams may be struggling with managing their supply chain, we’ve been helping organisations significantly and quickly with our Accord Contracts Management.

Accord’s effective functionality enables organisations to find and review their contracts and supply chain information and provide data-driven insights on issues that could arise under your existing contracts. To deal with impact of Brexit, organisations need:

Accurate oversight

Your team will need to check existing contracts for EU jurisdiction-exclusive clauses and negotiate new contracts with necessary addenda to deal with the impact of Brexit on the business and evaluate who will bear the Brexit risk and update internal contract governance. Your supply chain will need evaluating to see improvements, saving or new pricing structures against UK based competitors.

An effective contract and supply chain management system will help your team accomplish all of this by enabling them to access contracts data, search for key clauses, and assign tasks to implement controls; using a centralised system to store, manage, track, share and report on your contracts can give your team the power to make decisions when changes happen.

Information at a glance

In addition to reviewing your data, you team needs one version of the truth – an effective system in place will provide up-to-date information as well as ensure your corporate structure is being adhered to. With a structured system for storing, tracking, sharing and reporting on legal information, your departments are able to develop strategic action plans and involve key stakeholders in establishing new governance and quickly generate insights to make more informed decisions.

In conclusion

The exit of the UK from the EU will have wide-reaching consequences for businesses, citizens and governments. Businesses seeking to minimise risks and capitalise on opportunities presented by this change need to have an accurate and overall understanding of their contracts and their supply chain. Using innovative contract management and supply chain management software to store, categorise and report on all your contract agreements, can speed the process up exponentially as well as making future changes and ongoing compliance more straightforward.

Accord is an advanced contract information management and reporting tool with a supplier intelligence function that tells you as much as you need to know about your suppliers, contracts and what needs doing next; holding your key clauses, including review dates, end dates, and terminations dates in one central secure location.

Accord’s Supplier Management Tools enables you the control, visibility and the compliance you need to build supply chain resilience as you can send contracted suppliers their own user login for your Suppliers to handle their own compliance documents and create a collaborative working environment; Alert Suppliers to Project/Contract milestones, reviews, renewals etc.

Take a look at our quick – less than 5 minutes – feature video, which shows how simple it is to onboard your suppliers with Accord: https://youtu.be/MpnqcPNHPeM

Accord’s Supplier Portal is reducing the time required to process information and manage suppliers; and ensures suppliers maintain their compliance by providing them with secure access to your Accord system so they can…

• See all the contracts they have in place with you.
• Manage their own insurance and compliance.
• Be easily notified of non-conformances.
• Address any non-conformances to improve KPI’s.
• Complete online questionnaires.
• Work more closely with procurement and purchasing departments.

Getting ahead of risks and uncertainties by improving the overall visibility and data management of your contracts and supply chain can help put your business in the best position to face the new terrain ahead.