-: Hi, my name is Crystal Spanjers.
My job title is lead contract management specialist.
I work for SPS Commerce.
SPS is one
of the largest technology employers in Minneapolis.
The company itself specializes
in electronic document exchange
between suppliers and retailers.
Some of my responsibilities include just like
on the department level, interviewing new hires,
training, creating training materials,
training in new people,
keeping our staff up to date on changes in the company,
providing ongoing training
when there are changes in pivots
that some of the like day-to-day things.
More interestingly, I get to work
on a lot of process improvements
that touch a lot of different departments.
Our main area of expertise is contracts.
So when customers have contract disputes
or want to alter their agreement,
or a large things happen like all the retail shutdowns
during the early phases of COVID,
that sort of customer noise hits our department directly.
Actually takes kind of a lot of people
and a lot of discussion,
and a lot of, you know high level analysis
to what's going to be fair.
What's that timeline going to look like?
Does everyone agree to this?
You never want your customer to just like walk away
from an agreement that gets, well bad for your business
and gets even more complicated.
But talking with these customers
and trying to find a negotiation
where everyone can be pleased,
and feel like they walked away with a fair business value.
That's really when you hit the sweet spot,
that's when you're doing the job right.
I live in contracts.
I read through them every day
and get very familiar with what all of the different clauses
and terms and specifics are,
but customers do not,
and it's not unusual
to have a customer who may have been with you
for, you know, 10 years
and when you pull out the contract and discuss it,
they don't know what those specifics are.
They don't know what what's going to dictate there.
So a lot of it is also just customer education,
building relationships.