This synthesis will be of interest to administrators, contract officers, and others interested in using consulting firms to manage a transportation agency's work activities -- ranging from a single project to a complete spectrum of work. Information is provided on various aspects of contract management systems, including examples of use of each aspect in several agencies. An increasing workload coupled with reduced staff size have caused state highway agencies to turn to private enterprise to accomplish work that has traditionally been done in-house. This report of the Transportation Research Board describes various aspects of the use of consultants to manage a highway agency's work and gives specific examples of use of each aspect in several agencies.

Globalization, increased economic and geopolitical uncertainty, technological advancements, and a rise in the number of regulations and legislations have led to a significant rise in the importance, volume, and complexity of modern contractual agreements. Yet, in spite of these profound changes, many organizations still manage the contracting process in a fragmented, manual, and ad-hoc manner, resulting in poor contract visibility, ineffective monitoring and management of contract compliance, and inadequate analysis of contract performance. The net effect of this has been a heightened interest in re-engineering and automation of Enterprise Contract Management (ECM) processes across industry sectors and geographies. Enterprise Contract Management: A Practical Guide to Successfully Implementing an ECM Solution addresses all the questions surrounding ECM, ECM solutions, and the project management, change management, and risk management considerations to ensure its successful implementation. This concise text will help your organization manage the challenges of the contract life cycle and the key success factors and pitfalls in a typical ECM solution. It is a must read for corporate executives, buyers, procurement and strategic sourcing specialists, contract administrators and procurement managers. There is currently no other book available on ECM solutions. All existing books on contract management focus on the legal aspects of contracts, but none describe the functions, features, capabilities of technology solutions that support ECM, nor do they explain the key considerations for ensuring a successful ECM solution implementation.

"This is the most important book on Silicon Valley I've read in two decades. It will take us all back to our roots in the counterculture, and will remind us of the true nature of the innovation process, before we tried to tame it with slogans and buzzwords." -- Po Bronson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nudist on the Late Shift and Nurtureshock A candid, colorful, and comprehensive oral history that reveals the secrets of Silicon Valley -- from the origins of Apple and Atari to the present day clashes of Google and Facebook, and all the start-ups and disruptions that happened along the way. Rarely has one economy asserted itself as swiftly--and as aggressively--as the entity we now know as Silicon Valley. Built with a seemingly permanent culture of reinvention, Silicon Valley does not fight change; it embraces it, and now powers the American economy and global innovation. So how did this omnipotent and ever-morphing place come to be? It was not by planning. It was, like many an empire before it, part luck, part timing, and part ambition. And part pure, unbridled genius... Drawing on over two hundred in-depth interviews, Valley of Genius takes readers from the dawn of the personal computer and the internet, through the heyday of the web, up to the very moment when our current technological reality was invented. It interweaves accounts of invention and betrayal, overnight success and underground exploits, to tell the story of Silicon Valley like it has never been told before. Read it to discover the stories that Valley insiders tell each other: the tall tales that are all, improbably, true.

In recent years, the design of contracts in supply chains has received significant attention from researchers and practitioners. Companies try to improve their profits by designing efficient contracts that ensure a high availability of the product at a low cost. In this book the author presents a quantitative approach for designing optimal supply chain contracts. Firstly, service level contracts, which are frequently used between a supplier and a manufacturer, are analyzed. For this contract type, optimal contract parameter combinations are identified that lead to a coordinated supply chain. Secondly, an optimal contract selection strategy is developed for a supply chain where a manufacturer can choose among multiple potential buyers. Potential readership includes scholars of supply chain management and management science, graduate students interested in these areas as well as interested practitioners involved in negotiating contracts.

This book is an introduction to construction contract administration and management, covering the delivery and execution stage of a construction project and the various issues which the contract administrator needs to proactively manage. It can therefore be used as a contract administrator’s resource book covering what needs to be done (and why) to keep a construction project on track from a commercial and contractual perspective. It is particularly appropriate for students and new practitioners from varied construction professions and whilst it covers domestic (UK) projects, it will be particularly useful for those studying and working on international projects where terminology, procedures and legal systems may differ from the UK. The content is split into four parts and is subdivided into easy-to-read chapters replicating the timeline of a project during the construction stage: Part A covers initiating the construction stage, project delivery mechanisms, contract administration and health and safety management; Part B covers managing the construction stage, contractor performance and relationship management; Part C covers finalising the construction stage, project completion and close-out; Part D covers claims and disputes. Introduction to Construction Contract Management will be particularly useful for students enrolled on global construction programmes together with international distance learning students and non-cognate graduates starting out on an international career in construction contract administration and quantity surveying.

The goal of risk management isn't to eliminate risk. It's to understand it. Strategic risk management isn't just about how, it's about why. In The Upside of Risk, author Michael Berman shows readers why risk management and strategic planning are inseparable. Building off research, historical examples, and the most current enterprise risk management framework, he shows why good risk management isn't about risk avoidance. It's about risk awareness, which empowers financial institutions to be prepared, protected, and positioned for opportunities. Underlining his message with lessons learned from the financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, Berman coaches readers to critically and systematically evaluate the assumptions propelling the decision-making process. From governance and culture to risk assessments and setting measurable strategy goals and objectives, he demonstrates why the most successful financial institutions approach risk management with curiosity and an open mind, leveraging their discoveries to make smarter decisions that support long-term strategic goals. Thoughtful and accessible, The Upside of Risk weaves together risk management theory and practical advice to deliver actionable takeaways for transforming risk management into a strategic advantage. It's a must-read for anyone in the banking industry who cares about creating value and building resilient institutions.

"I am sure practitioners, auditors, and regulators will find the content of Mr Shaik's book of value. The accessible style is also welcome. All in all, a worthwhile addition to the finance literature and one that hopefully helps plug the knowledge gap in this field." — from the foreword by Professor Moorad Choudhry, Brunel University Managing Derivatives Contracts is a comprehensive and practical treatment of the end-to-end management of the derivatives contract operations, systems, and platforms that support the trading and business of derivative products. This book focuses on the processes and systems in the derivatives contract life cycle that underlie and implement the activities of derivatives trading, pricing, and risk management. Khader Shaik, a Wall Street derivatives platform implementation expert, lays out all the fundamentals needed to understand, conduct, and manage derivatives operations. In particular, he provides both introductory and in-depth treatment of the following topics: derivative product classes; the market structure, mechanics, and players of derivatives markets; types of derivative contracts and life cycle management; derivatives technology platforms, software systems, and protocols; derivatives contracts management; and the new regulatory landscape as shaped by reforms such as Dodd-Frank Title VII and EMIR. Managing Derivatives Contracts focuses on the operational processes and market environment of the derivatives life cycle; it does not address the mathematics or finance of derivatives trading, which are abundantly treated in the standard literature. Managing Derivatives Contracts is divided into four parts. The first part provides a structural overview of the derivatives markets and product classes. The second part examines the roles of derivatives market players, the organization of buy-side and sell-side firms, critical data elements, and the Dodd-Frank reforms. Within the framework of total market flow and straight-through processing as constrained by regulatory compliance, the core of the book details the contract life cycle from origination to expiration for each of the major derivatives product classes, including listed futures and options, cleared and bilateral OTC swaps, and credit derivatives. The final part of the book explores the underlying information technology platform, software systems, and protocols that drive the end-to-end business of derivatives. In particular, it supplies actionable guidelines on how to build a platform using vendor products, in-house development, or a hybrid approach.