Third party relationships – with key customers or suppliers – are critical to the delivery of business value, either from increased revenue, or appropriate management of cost. However, with the recent pace and scale of transformation in corporate procurement functions and practices, it has been our experience that many organisations are struggling effectively to manage the new reality, and to optimise their third relationships (e.g. due to legacy deal structures, or sales teams facing the challenges of negotiating with larger businesses with aggressive procurement teams, or procurement teams seeking to secure value with larger or fragmented suppliers).