Commercial operations at dxw

We facilitate dxw’s commerce, contracting processes, and prioritise salability, profitability and success. This allows dxw to continue its social mission.

Areas of work we’re responsible for include:

• organising dxw’s client and contractor agreements, to ensure that dxw can deliver, whilst protecting both us and our clients
• facilitating changes to agreements based on developing needs. We deliver in an agile way, so our projects can often develop and move in different directions. This means that we need to renegotiate, or extend, contracts to allow for these changes
• supporting delivery teams through any issues related to the agreements in place, allowing them to remove any blockers, and focus on delivering projects and programmes
• taking an active approach to contract management as it allows us to track timelines, ensuring that we stay on track for deadlines. This includes notifying the wider team and preparing for extensions or project offboarding
• ensuring that dxw meets all legal and industry standards
• working closely with account management, client services and project coordinators to run a commercial client relations community of practice within dxw. This includes working with the wider team to share any industry trends or changes to policy that may affect the way they need to operate.
• reviewing our processes to ensure we better meet our delivery teams’ needs as well as adapting to new rules and regulations
• sharing commercial experience, thinking and standards across the organisation
• providing support to dxw’s finance function
• providing client support with any issues that arise
• sharing updates across the organisation about policy, lessons learned or urgent changes that will affect delivery, so staff are informed and engaged in what we are doing

Why the commercial team’s work is important #

We work to protect both dxw and its clients from any commercial, financial or legal complications by following industry standards. Our goal is to enable delivery using contract management, and ensure we stay true to our core values so that dxw can continue to continue to create public services that improve lives.

Our contracts and agreements provide reassurance to our clients that the work we are delivering is good value for money for their users.

We work diligently and transparently with our client’s commercial teams, sharing all aspects of the work we do from the procurement process through to the work finishing, project offboarding and the contract ending process.

And we work to mitigate commercial blockers. We do this by spending our time breaking down or summarising policies, regulations or laws and removing any jargon, to make this a more accessible process and provide suitable protection to all involved parties.

Commercial strength gives dxw the freedom to invest in our people and teams and maintain our culture and values.

How we work with the wider dxw team #

Collaborating with colleagues across dxw, we

• work with delivery teams to ensure project deliverables, budgets and contractual terms are achievable before agreeing them with the client commercial team. Having clarity around the contract and statements of work allows teams to focus on delivering.

• regularly talk to Delivery leads, Project leads and Project coordinators to understand the commercial health of our projects and assess what the Commercial team can do to mitigate risks and issues

• provide project health updates to the finance team who manage the cash flow for the business, particularly when opportunities for further work from a client are identified. And we notify them about expenditure on projects such as external contractors.

• work closely with the people team to ensure they have the necessary information to start security vetting for contractors who are identified to join our project teams.

• support the wider company by assisting in purchasing decisions, entering negotiations with suppliers, reviewing contractual terms, providing commercial advice and ensuring compliance with industry regulations.

Last updated: 20 March 2024 (history)