Richard Raysman and Peter Brown in the New York Law journal set out some “vendor management 101″ lessons for crisis management in outsourcing agreements. The real lesson is that the relationship should not have been allowed to get to that state in the first place. Problems with service delivery or contract management tend to become larger and more intractable with each passing second.

Their “corrective plan” recommendation is a good one. Ideally, the “corrective plan” process should be set out in the original agreement.

One effective tool that the parties may use to resolve their dispute is a “corrective plan.” A corrective plan is a written agreement that is tailored toward the specific problem or problems identified in the demand. The plan spells out a course of action that the parties need to take, generally over a 30- to 90-day period, to resolve production or financial issues, or both. Often the plan will contain explicit language that there is no admission of wrongdoing on either side.

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