Stopping contract value leakage: Closing the post-signature gap

By Chand Singh

The signature is not the finish line. A signed contract does not deliver savings, service, or protection on its own. A negotiated saving is a commitment to deliver value, not evidence that it has been realised. Closing that post-signature value gap comes down to three things: mobilising well, translating what was agreed into practical controls, and actively managing the contract as circumstances change.

WorldCC and Deloitte Legal’s 2023 report estimates average contract value erosion at 8.6%, compared with just a little over 3% for the best performers. This suggests significant scope for stronger contract management to reduce value leakage and protect negotiated benefits.

That loss rarely comes from one single failure. More often, we observe value loss building through a series of smaller misses, such as an unclaimed rebate, unchallenged performance issues, or uncontrolled scope change. Contract management therefore needs to be proactive; it must start before problems appear.

One of the highest-risk points is the move from negotiation into delivery. During sourcing, procurement teams build up a detailed understanding of demand, supplier economics, operational dependencies, risk trade-offs, and the levers used to create value. But that understanding isn't always carried through once the contract is signed.

In many organisations, Procurement is organised and measured around sourcing, negotiation, and award, while responsibility after signature passes to Operations, Finance, or Legal teams. Each function may hold part of the picture, but often no one is clearly accountable for connecting the negotiated business case, contractual commitments, operational performance, and financial outcomes. This fragmentation is reinforced when contract documents, performance data, spend information, and operational decisions sit with different systems or teams. 

Ideally, the business users and contract managers who will run the agreement will have been involved before award, not introduced only after signature. Where that has not happened, mobilisation needs to close the gap quickly. For a complex procurement or strategic supplier relationship, simply sharing a document and holding a short handover meeting are rarely enough to close this gap.

Good mobilisation should therefore do more than transfer knowledge. It should establish clear commercial accountability – with ownership of the value baseline, performance, and change – as well as the governance and ways of working needed to protect the contract’s value throughout delivery. Without this, the contract becomes a passive record rather than an active management, making it harder to identify problems and take corrective action.

Effective mobilisation can be structured around four key pillars, each addressing a critical question: