What Does A Contract Associate Do?

WHAT DOES A CONTRACT ASSOCIATE DO?

Published: August 14, 2024 - The Contract Associate collaborates with the Contracts Director, Contracts Manager, and other stakeholders to prepare, review, and negotiate various agreements, including consultancy, services, and research collaborations while ensuring compliance with company policies. This role involves managing agreement processes, assessing risks, tracking unsigned agreements, and providing explanations to internal contract requesters. Additionally, the associate maintains electronic records, updates agreement templates, and documents work meticulously.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Contract Associate

1. Contract Associate Roles

Contract Management: Prepare, redline, negotiate, and manage commercial contracts including Services Agreements, Statements of Work, Amendments, and related legal agreements.
Communication: Engage in frequent verbal and written communications with both Facebook’s and Supplier’s legal teams.
Strategy Development: Assist the contracts team in developing and implementing contract strategy for various work streams and work cross-functionally with other Source-to-Pay teams, Legal, and business teams to drive process improvements.
Project Liaison: Liaise with business partners to ensure project goals, project descriptions, and all requirements are accurately reflected in each contract.
Compliance: Ensure business activities and contracts comply with internal policies and guidelines, industry laws and regulations, including data privacy laws.
Contract Management Tools: Responsible for entering contracts into Facebook’s contract management tools.
Cross-department Coordination: Liaise with departments such as finance and legal to ensure agreements comply with legal and budgetary guidelines and policies.
Contract Completion: Ensure end-to-end successful completion of the assigned contracts.
Time Zone Coordination: Comfort and experience working across time zones.
Strategic Planning: Support coverage and pricing strategic planning and forecasts for multiple products within a Business Unit.
Pricing Strategy: Partner with Contract Operations to implement pricing strategies and contracts.
Pricing and Contracting: Participate in pricing and contracting scenarios, contract decisions, and LEDR.

2. Contract Associate Tasks

Contract Drafting and Execution: Draft, review, evaluate, negotiate, and execute commercial inbound contracts including services agreements, statements of work, amendments, sponsorship agreements, donation letters, and related agreements.
Contract Administration: Ensure end-to-end successful completion of the assigned contracts, including contract administration and execution by entering contracts into Meta’s contract management tools.
Inquiry Management: Manage and respond to a high volume of daily contract-related inquiries from various stakeholders.
Project Liaison: Liaise with business stakeholders to understand their project goals, project descriptions, and ensure that the relevant requirements are accurately reflected in each contract.
Compliance Coordination: Liaise with departments such as finance and legal to ensure agreements comply with legal and budgetary guidelines and policies.
Stakeholder Communication: Liaise and engage in frequent communications with internal stakeholders and external suppliers’ legal teams.
Legal Liaison: Act as primary liaison to Meta Legal, supporting legal strategy, assessing, and protecting the business from risks.
Training and Education: Provide training to stakeholders on various topics, including key contract concepts and processes.
Continuous Improvement: Engage in continuous improvement initiatives to build a scalable and best-in-class contract function.
Support Management: Raise support tickets and follow up with support teams.
Reporting: Provide campaign results and supplier registration reports to the VP of Procurement.

3. Global Contract Associate Overview

Contract Management: Organizes, administers, and maintains all contracts, NDAs, pricing agreements, Quality agreements, and consulting agreements.
Project Tracking: Tracks projects to ensure they are on target, timely, and accurate.
Contract Reception: Receives commercial contracts and agreements directly and through the sales and marketing team.
Contract Review: Reviews and edits all contracts to ensure they align with NAMSA’s terms, global templates, and policies.
Database Management: Uploads and assists with maintaining the Contract Management database (Spring CM), which houses all current agreements.
Contract Coverage: Ensures that 100% of client projects/engagements are covered by a legal contract acceptable to NAMSA.
Operational Notification: Notifies business units of any contract provisions that require operational action or adherence (finance, operations, quality).
Agreement Administration: Monitors termination dates of agreements and proactively administers the extension, term, renewal, or renegotiation of agreements as directed by the appropriate NAMSA commercial manager.
Metrics and Reporting: Creates metrics and/or reports for the Contracts Department’s turnaround time, number of agreements managed, type of agreements, or any other relevant metrics for managing the contracts function.
Supplier Management: Completes and manages Supplier forms and questionnaires for NAMSA.

4. Contract Associate Functions

Stakeholder Liaison: Liaise with the Contracts Director, Contracts Manager, and others relating to the preparation and dispatch of agreements with other parties.
Agreement Review Liaison: Liaise with the Contracts Director, Contracts Manager, and others relating to the review of agreements provided by other parties.
Agreement Drafting and Negotiation: Draft, review, and negotiate agreements with other parties (e.g., Consultancy, Services, Confidential Disclosure, Material Transfer, Research Collaboration), following company policies and procedures and business requirements.
Process Assistance: Assist the Contracts Director and Contracts Manager with the management of processes and procedures relating to agreement requests, drafting, negotiation, and finalization.
Risk Assessment: Perform a risk assessment of proposed terms and conditions and develop strategies and recommendations to minimize potential risks to the business.
Agreement Tracking: Keep track of the status of unsigned agreements and follow up where necessary.
Obligation Handover: Handover agreements to internal contract requesters to explain obligations.
Filing: File electronic correspondence and agreements.
Template Management: Assist Contracts Manager in keeping Oxford BioMedica agreement templates up to date.
Record Keeping: Keep detailed records/notebooks.
Communication: Communicate work verbally or in writing.

5. Travel and Convening Contract Associate Job Summary

Administrative Support: Provide administrative/travel support for individual/group travel services within the Travel and Convening team.
Administrative Solutions: Provide administrative solutions, employ direct communication, and offer quality support at all times.
Relationship Building: Build positive working relationships with local and remote staff, contractors, and volunteer community members through professional, concise communication.
Spreadsheet Management: Create and manage org-wide spreadsheets with accuracy and within deadlines.
Contract Workflow: Learn and follow the contract workflow process using organizational tracking software.
Expense Reconciliation: Prepare multiple large expense reconciliations and reports with backup documentation every month.
Values-based Work: Work within a values-based organization committed to prudent, passionate organizational goals.
Onsite Logistics Support: Assist the identified department leads to solicit onsite logistics and support guidelines and ensure they are aligned with contractual obligations.
Research and Sourcing: Provide research and sourcing assistance for hotels and venues worldwide.
Contract Management: Manage the contract process using tracking software.