GSA STANDARD TERMS 

The GSA's intention in commissioning Standard Terms was to generate a generic supply contract which could be considered to represent a relatively balanced position as between the competing interests of customer and supplier in a procurement relationship, thereby creating a contract which sourcing industry participants could use with the confidence that the provisions are a reasonable middle ground.

It is our hope that, through frequent use within the industry, our standard terms will achieve three aims:

• reduce negotiation time: with sufficient industry use, a number of the more boilerplate provisions in this document could come to be considered to reflect the "market standard" position in the sourcing industry, thereby reducing the need for bespoke negotiation of provisions without prejudicing the balance of risk between the parties.

• reduce legal fees: as a consequence of reducing negotiation time, we would hope that the need to spend large amounts of money on legal support will be correspondingly reduced. A hopeful bi-product of that will be that more time can be focused on adequately describing the scope and requirements for the services, any performance records and so on.

• improve accessibility to sophisticated terms: we believe in quality sourcing for all, and so hope that by making this document freely available, it will improve the quality of contracting for small and medium sized enterprises which do not have budget to spend substantially on documentation. Repeated use of the terms would also help participants become familiar with what to expect in contracts when negotiating with larger companies or for bigger mandates.

Watch the full presentation below: