Every contractual relationship begins with a person.
Someone who answers the phone, who knows your organisation’s quirks, who fixes problems. But every organisation, in time, forgets its people. They move on. Priorities shift. The names on the email chain change, and with them, the understanding that once made things work.
What remains when memory fades is the machinery we built to preserve it: the contract. That’s what commercial management really is. It’s not red tape or obstruction, but institutional memory.
This is what I think about as a commercial manager in government: how to turn fragile, personal understanding into lasting, organisational clarity, and why that work determines whether good relationships endure or dissolve.
The starting point
When I start a procurement process, my stakeholders usually have fantastic relationships with their suppliers. These are subject matter experts who've worked with the same people for years and who delivered great work with their suppliers.
Then I show up and say, "Let's test that relationship. Let's see if we can find something better. Maybe we need to consider other suppliers."
I can see the look on their faces: "Why would we risk this? Everything's working fine."
They're not wrong; those relationships are valuable. But those relationships aren't between organisations, they're between people.
When we open a relationship to competition, we’re stress-testing it. The goal isn’t to replace what works, but to assess whether it’s strong enough to endure what’s coming.
The reply to this is: “If it’s not broken now, what makes you think it will break in the future?”
Legal compliance aside, the short answer is that you cannot wait for things to break before you fix them. You’re representing an organisation and, in the public sector, delivering critical services to citizens. You cannot leave that to chance or any individual’s belief in their supplier relationship.
People vs. organisations: A critical distinction
When you have a fantastic working relationship with a supplier, what you actually have is a fantastic relationship with Sara in account management, with Idris the consultant, with the team that shows up and does the work. Collaboration happens between people.
But organisations? Organisations are different beasts. Organisations have: profit margins to protect, cost-saving targets to hit, and strategic priorities that shift.
In short, organisations make decisions based on spreadsheets.
When good relationships go bad
Let me paint a scenario for you. It's one I've seen play out too many times.
Your fantastic supplier contacts, Sara, Idris, the whole team, they get promoted. They move to different accounts. They leave the company.
Meanwhile, somewhere in a board room far away from your project, the C-suite gathers around a conference table. They're looking at a spreadsheet. Your contract is on that spreadsheet, and someone asks: "Why are we investing all this time, energy, and resource into this particular contract when we could redeploy these people to win new business? Bigger contracts? Higher-margin work?"
Your relationship isn't in that room. Your history isn't in that spreadsheet. And suddenly, that account that was always prioritised? It's not anymore. The supplier hasn't changed companies but everything else has changed.
Or here's another scenario: Your organisation goes through budget cuts. New leadership comes in. Priorities shift. And someone says, "Why are we paying this much? What exactly are we getting for this money?"
If all you can say is, "We have a great relationship," you're not convincing anyone.
It’s not cruelty; it’s drift. And it’s why our work as commercial managers is to build anchors. A positive relationship has much more chance of surviving when you say “if we don’t deliver in this way, we will lose money.”
At this stage, all you have is your contract. More precisely, all you have left are the commitments that are clearly stated in your contract.
You need to be able to say:
- "The contract states delivery by this date"
- "The service level agreement defines quality as X"
- "The payment terms are tied to these specific milestones".
Trust and good relationships are essential. They make it easier to work with others, but they're not contract clauses.
When priorities shift, and they always do, we’re the ones holding the map of what was agreed and why. We make sure today’s decisions still honour yesterday’s promises. That’s not bureaucracy; that’s stewardship.
What this looks like in practice
Over the years, I've worked on contracts ranging from straightforward, short-term supply agreements to complex engineering projects. My goal is always the same: make them crystal clear and be willing to enforce them.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of taking existing good practice from a supplier as the default setting. But where a deliverable is necessary, where quality matters, where timing is critical, that needs to be articulated clearly and unambiguously.
Final thought
Good relationships are built between people but sustainable relationships are built between organisations.
So the next time someone tells you, "But we have such a great relationship with this supplier," the answer isn't, "That doesn't matter." The answer is: "That's exactly why we need to test it and protect it with a clear contract so that the relationship lasts."
Here's what I'm asking: When you have a great relationship with a supplier, don't try to preserve it by keeping commercial out. Protect it by bringing us in early. Let us help make that relationship sustainable because that is how it’ll survive what's coming.
Saema Jaffer is a freelance procurement consultant and trainer. She was previously head of commercial policy and capability at the UK Parliament. Before that she also worked for the Cabinet Office, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, HS2 and various local authorities