Commercial & Contracts

Who you sell to

Business to business, business to consumer, or reaching consumers through another business. Each implies a very different sales motion and product.

Request for Proposal / Information, Invitation to Tender

Formal procurement documents. An RFI gathers information, an RFP or ITT invites priced proposals against a specification.

Pre-Qualification Questionnaire / Selection Questionnaire

The first stage of many UK tenders, screening suppliers on financial standing, insurance, policies and experience before they may bid.

Pre-approved supplier list

An agreement letting public bodies buy from approved suppliers without running a full tender each time. Getting onto one is often the real prize.

Find a Tender Service

The UK government service where higher-value public-sector contract notices are published, post-Brexit successor to OJEU.

Statement of Work

The document defining exactly what will be delivered, by when, to what standard and for how much. Where scope disputes are won or lost.

Master Service Agreement

The overarching contract setting the standing terms between two parties, so individual pieces of work only need a short SOW.

Non-Disclosure Agreement

A confidentiality agreement, usually signed before commercially sensitive discussions.

Service Level Agreement

The contractual promise about service quality, typically uptime and response times, with agreed consequences if missed.

Intellectual Property

Ownership of the code, designs and content. Who owns what must be explicit in every development contract, and is examined closely in due diligence.

Rebranded for a partner

Supplying your product for another company to sell under their own brand.

A paid or limited first deployment

A time-boxed real-world trial with a customer, usually with agreed success criteria and a decision point at the end.

The buying process

The formal process an organisation follows to select and contract suppliers. In the public sector it is heavily regulated.

Two common models

Per-seat charges per user; usage-based charges by consumption, such as API calls or storage. Many products now combine both.

Difficulty leaving

The cost and disruption of switching away from a supplier. A standard question from buyers, and one worth having a good answer to.

Return on Investment

A measure comparing the benefit or gain from an investment with the cost required to achieve it.

Total Cost of Ownership

The complete lifetime cost of a technology choice, including purchase, operation, support, people, migration and eventual replacement or exit.

Capital Expenditure / Operating Expenditure

CapEx is upfront investment in long-lived assets; OpEx is ongoing operating spend. Cloud services often shift technology cost toward usage-based OpEx.

Technology financial operations practice

A collaborative operating framework for engineering, finance and business teams to maximise technology value and create financial accountability.