Contract Preparation as Part of Contract Management

"This paper will study the concept of contract management. The focus is in contract law and especially in contract preparation. Corporate governance and risk management have been current themes also in Finnish business life in past years. The transparency of business and aims to create long-term partnerships have also appeared a lot in discussions but also in actions. At the same time there has been in many contexts reasoning about organizing, governing or managing corporate contracting. In those occasions there have been used terms like contract government, contract administration and contract management. This paper will discuss organizing comprehensively corporate contracting, in other words contract management. Contract management is outlined in the form of long-term business contract and the focus is in the contract preparation. Contract preparation is studied through proactive law, competitive bidding and contract negotiations. Collecting research questions are: What is contract management and what are the key elements of it in terms of contract law? The perspective arises mainly from the Finnish legal system and contract law. In addition there are some aspects of international contract law. Practical references, for example case law, come from real estate and construction business. One goal of this paper is to show what kinds of developments are going on in modern contract law. This is linked to the research approaches concerning contractual skills. When the amount of long-term business contracts increases the recognition and handling of contractual risks are emphasized. It also implies realization of fruitful co-operation of different professions when preparing contracts.""