Trane US vs SVS Machines and Service Maintenance Agreements

While a company may only sell one type of product or service, their purchasing managers constantly buy all sorts of goods and services from various industries, each with differing contracts. Unfortunately, the company’s legal counsel is usually brought in to review the purchase contracts after all the negotiations are done. In this episode, in-house counsel Vincenzo Viglione shows how to add bottom-line value by bringing the attorney into the negotiating process from the beginning. He explains how to use his three-part framework to compare two service contracts from Trane US and SVS Machines and Service and determine which one is best from a legal perspective.

Questions in this Episode:

1. How can attorneys add value to the purchasing process?
2. What are the three legal fundamentals to measure in purchasing contracts?
3. Why is loss of production liability unreasonable?
4. Should location determine the quality of service?
5. When do business factors outweigh legal factors?

Comparing Service Agreements

Before comparing service or purchase agreements, you must first understand the purchasing process itself and know precisely your ideal terms. In this comparison framework, the ideal contract terms are called the Terms of Reference.

Use a simple three-part framework to compare contracts to the ideal contract terms defined in the Terms of Reference, and then see how they scored against each other from a legal perspective.

Although the contracts compared here are both maintenance service agreements, the comparison process works with any purchasing contracts. Purchasing departments deal with these types of contracts daily, so having a contract comparison tool is quite valuable.

By understanding purchase contracts and the purchasing process, the contract drafting attorney can add legal value to the purchase of goods and services.

Create the Terms of Reference First

The first step is to create the Terms of Reference, against which you will score the contracts.

The best result comes from bringing the attorney into the purchasing process from the very beginning instead of at the end, as is usually the case. This starts with the buyer and attorney brainstorming to define precisely what goods or services the company wants to purchase. Equally important is to determine what terms are deal-breakers and unacceptable for the purchase, and knowing what red flag issues might come up.

After that, the purchasing department can scout the particular vendor category knowing what to look for and what to avoid.

By working together from the beginning, the attorney and buyer put the company in a position of strength when they negotiate with the vendors.

Three-Part Comparison Framework

When comparing contracts from a legal perspective, it is vital to cover the three fundamental areas below. 

Labor versus Results.  It is important to understand that you should be purchasing a result or a specific outcome, not just hours of labor. In a service agreement, you may want the result that the service company maintains your machines and fixes any repairs within a specific time frame. If you are purchasing goods, you want them delivered by a particular date and in good condition. You are not purchasing best efforts or time spent doing the job – you are purchasing a result.

Your purchasing department should also know what to avoid. Understanding what efforts (labor) your company has to contribute to get the agreed-upon result is essential.

What’s In It. You are making a legal decision and a business decision. You need to know precisely what your dollars are purchasing.

Liability. This category is more than just legal liability. As a lawyer, you want the vendor to be liable for everything. Then, if something goes wrong, you can take them to court. But for the vast majority of times, that is not what happens in the business world.

In this context, you want to know if the vendor or service company takes responsibility for their mistakes. Do they fix their errors for free? If they cause any material damage, are you compensated after a certain liability cap?

Comparing Trane and SVS Maintenance Agreements

In this exercise, we are comparing a maintenance agreement from TRANE US to one from SVS Systems. Trane maintains HVAC systems while SVS maintains production line equipment, so these are different services. But the contract comparison will give you an idea of how to score contracts from a legal perspective. These two contracts are the archetype of service contracts that all companies use all the time.

Labor Versus Result – What Results are Promised?

The Trane agreement starts well in this category with an excellent executive summary and scope of services section. This is smart drafting because it catches the attention of the buyer’s business person and their technical person.

They also say you can save 80% of your budget with them and prevent unplanned downtime. 

But, the troubling language is in the fine print. In the Performance section where it says they promise to “perform the services in accordance with industry standards and generally applicable in the state or province where the services are provided.”

This peculiar clause means the level of service might change according to where your company’s machines are located. For example, the service in Guatemala might be less than you will receive in other locations.

On the other hand, the SVS contract promises a result by stating you will be able to use your machine for a certain period of time. While this has to be further defined in the technical section, this language is closer to our ideal Terms of Reference. 

In Labor versus Results, Trane scores a 0, while SVS scores a 1.

What’s in It – What are You Really Buying?

Both companies do well in this category and clearly define what is being purchased. Trane has a well-done appendix, and SVS explains the details of the purchase in several sections.

What are you actually buying? This is a basic question. But it is a fundamental question that sometimes has a difficult answer. #ContractTeardown Click To Tweet

These details need to be checked against the company-specific expectations and with their technical department. But from a legal perspective, they are both acceptable and a good starting point.

Both companies score a 1 in this category.

Liability – What Are They Agreeing To Cover?

When it comes to the liability section of our comparison, Trane does poorly while SVS does well.

The Trane contract has a list of exclusions that will not be covered, and in a maintenance agreement this is always troublesome and not ideal.

Maintenance companies, like Trane, typically do a detailed inspection of the machines before executing the maintenance agreement. They are the experts and know what needs to be fixed and what does not. After the initial inspection and any needed repairs, it seems logical that they maintain the equipment without a long list of exclusions.

SVS simply states that they will not be liable for loss of profits, loss of production, or consequential losses. From an attorney’s point of view, we want the maintenance company to be liable for everything, but that would be an unreasonable expectation. So if they are not liable for loss of profits, production, or consequential losses, is that acceptable?

While you may be paying them $70 per hour to maintain and fix the machinery, it is not feasible for them to assume the loss of production liability which might run into millions of dollars. Other than that, SVS agrees to take full responsibility for fixing whatever they do wrong.

 In this category, Trane scores a 0, while SVS scores a 1.

Using the System in the Real World

Using this very basic contract scoring system, Trane would score a 1, and SVS would score a 3. Therefore, Trane would be the preferable contract, but this is only from a legal perspective.

All other factors being equal, SVS has a better contract because it is closer to the Terms of Reference. This does not mean the company will or should choose the higher scoring contract all the time. 

In the real world, all other factors are never equal. One company might have a substantially lower price. Technical issues need to be analyzed, and one company may be more experienced or have a better reputation.

Purchasing is complicated and challenging to do well. Your company may sell only one type of product or service but consume and purchase hundreds of goods and services, all with differing terms, conditions, and contracts. 

The above comparison framework is just one tool for the business’s purchasing decision. The main takeaway is to get the attorney involved early and add legal value to the purchasing process.

Show Notes

THE CONTRACTS: Trane Service Agreement, SVS Machine Service Agreement

OTHER RESOURCES: How to add legal value to the purchase of goods and services

THE GUEST: Vincenzo Viglione is a contract lawyer, dealing with international business law as well as Italian law, with a passion for purchasing. Currently studying English law. You can find him on LinkedIn or reach him through email at v.viglione@live.it. 

THE HOST: Mike Whelan is the author of Lawyer Forward: Finding Your Place in the Future of Law and host of the Lawyer Forward community. Learn more about his work for attorneys at www.lawyerforward.com.

If you are interested in being a guest on Contract Teardown, please email us at community@lawinsider.com.

Transcript

Vincenzo Viglione [00:00:00] What are you actually buying? This is a basic question, but it is a fundamental question that sometimes has a difficult answer.

Intro Voice [00:00:07] Welcome to the Contract Teardown show from Law Insider, where legal experts tear down contracts from some of the most well-known companies and high profile executives around the world.

Mike Whelan [00:00:21] In this episode, in-house counsel Vincenzo Viglione contrasts two service contracts from Trane US and SVS machines and service, as Vincenzo says. What these service agreements lack in sexiness, they make up for in frequency. He uses a three part framework to compare to agreements and as clients counsel, choose the best from among them. So let’s tear it down.

Mike Whelan [00:00:47] Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Contract Teardown show from Law Insider. I’m Mike Whelan. The purpose of the show is exactly what it sounds like. We take documents and we beat them up. We are generally pretty mean to them. Sometimes we’re nice. I’m hanging here with my buddy Vincenzo. How are you today, sir?

Vincenzo Viglione [00:01:04] Quite well. How are you, Mike?

Mike Whelan [00:01:06] I am pretty good. I am. My wife got in from the from flight yesterday at 4:00 in the morning, so actually I’m I am operating on two monster energy drinks right now. So this could be the most interesting interview we’ve ever done today. Guys, we are talking about a couple of documents. I think this is a really interesting context. Let me show you these two documents. They’re both service agreements and two different context. And we’re going to sort of compare the two. Vincenzo’s got some ideas about how we can compare the two. So Vincenzo, let me jump over to you. What are these two documents? Why do we care about them? Why are we bringing them up in this conversation on the Contract Teardown show?

Vincenzo Viglione [00:01:45] Yeah. So these are two service agreements, as you said. Notably, they are two maintenance service agreements now. They may not be as prestigious as other contracts that I mean, I’m a fan of the Contract Teardown show. So I watched all the episodes, so they were not as prestigious as the Microsoft agreements or other contracts that you have worked on in the past in this show. But they are, I don’t know, they are archetypes of type of contract in the service contract that virtually any company will need. So it might be interesting almost for everybody. And that’s why I believe they are interesting.

Mike Whelan [00:02:28] And you know, with my background, I think I mentioned this before I’d worked in logistics, before I went to law school. And for me, these are the kinds of contracts that people actually use on a day to day basis and where a lot of trouble I’m in and in our experience in litigation, these are the kinds of contracts that really tend to come up a lot. So I appreciate you bringing these will dig into them before we do. Tell me about you. Tell me about your background. What brings you to this? What’s your perspective on these documents?

Vincenzo Viglione [00:02:56] Oh yeah. So, um, I’m legal counsel in Melexis. It’s multinational corporation in the area of semiconductor civil micros, integrated circuits and so on. But before that, I really work as purchasing lawyer, so I was lawyer in only for the purchasing department of another company. And it is there where I developed my passion for purchasing law. If we can say that something like that, this is A.. And so I started really thinking about the issues that these areas can create, not only to lawyers, but also and especially to my business partner. So the buyer’s category managers, purchasing manager, whatever you want to call these guys. And so what we are doing today, apart from tearing down these contracts, we are also tearing down, tearing down the purchasing process more generally. So I believe it will be interesting.

Mike Whelan [00:04:04] Perfect. And nobody’s judging your passions. OK, this is a group of nerds and Italian love inscrutable. And I would point out that, and we’ll include the link in the show notes over on the blog. You had written an article about adding value, legal value through purchases through procurement, and we’re going to put that in there. So in the background is sort of this detailed academic look at that. But we’re going to, as we do on the show, execute that through talking about these particular documents. So let’s get started. I’m going to let you lead the way a little bit when you’re looking at documents like this right now, we’re comparing to. But if I’m a lawyer and I’m facing this kind of document, where do I get started? If I’m if I’m making decisions around documents like this?

Vincenzo Viglione [00:04:50] Well, I believe that three areas are fundamental. The scope of your contract? Uh, so what is the result? What is the what are you actually buying? This is a basic question, but it is a fundamental question that sometimes has a difficult answer. What is in the contract? So what is included in the price that you are about me and what is not? And of course, liability something that it’s relevant is interesting for, I believe almost every contract. But I think that our journey together today, but also in reality and practice doesn’t stop from the contract, but it starts much earlier. It starts from what they call the terms of reference. So if the buyer comes to me and says, Hey, insurance, we need these maintenance services. This is the contractor that we chose. This is the contract that they sent us, and we need to sign it into it. The joke I make, it’s like, OK, not even a good lawyer could help you today. So that’s because, I mean, it’s only two up to a certain extent, because really, when you are ready, when you have a ready made your choice, it’s very difficult to negotiate. So you need to start from a position of strength and which means that my business partner, the buyer, has to come to me much earlier in the process when you as a business partner decide, OK, I need maintenance services, so you come to me. We start brainstorming and you might ask me the same question, the very question that you will just ask me. So as a buyer, you will. You will ask me, OK, now I’m going to scout the market. What should I pay attention to? And I will tell you these three points and we will draft our terms of reference, such as an idea. Let’s say a dealer contract, and then we will compare the offers that you will get in the market. And we will I mean, we will see how far from our ideal they are. So let’s start maybe from the terms of reference. And as you can see, we have in this little table that we prepared. We have the three issues that we just discussed. And let’s think, let’s think together what would be the ideal, what would be the ideal setup? What are we looking for in a contract? So labor bids result? Let’s begin. This is the very content of the contract. So of course, as a lawyer, we know that obligations, especially of a service provider, can be classified into two categories. So you have obligation of means and obligation versus obligation of results or obligation of means meets. Your contractor will do the tasks that are least in the contract and then whatever happens happens. I mean, you can, if you benefit from that, all the better. But if you don’t achieve your result, it’s not your contract.

Mike Whelan [00:08:07] Hey, everybody, I’m Mike Whelen. I hope you’re enjoying this episode of the Contract Teardown show. Real quick, I want to ask you to do me slash you really a quick favor. Look down below. You’ll see a discount code to join the Law Insider Premium subscription. When you do that, you get access to more content like this. You’ll see webinars daily tips on contract drafting. Not to mention access to the world’s largest database of sample contracts and clauses. It will help you write better contracts faster if you want to do it. Right now, there’s a code below, so get there. Also, if you’re part of a larger team, if you’re in-house or in a law firm, just email us where at sales@LawInsider.com. We’ll make sure you get a deal as well. Come join us in the community. The code is below. Let’s get back to the show.

Mike Whelan [00:08:53] And let me clarify real quick when you’re when you’re using the terms labor versus a result you’re talking about, you know, the difference between inputs and outputs, right? Like if in a contract there is work to be done, but then there’s also what we’re after. Right. And so you’re because you’re in this idealized design stage, you’re able to say, Well, I actually I want to know what the result is. That I’m getting to work is the way to get to it. My understanding that distinction, right?

Vincenzo Viglione [00:09:21] Yes, that’s perfect. So what I would like to see, of course, nothing for beats that you simply purchase labor. So the work and then what happens happens. It’s a strategy. It’s not illegal. It’s just a strategy about your purchasing partner, your your buy. Your buyer should be aware of what is purchasing. Otherwise there might be unpleasant surprises. So the ideal for me is purchasing a certain result. My contractor is an expert in their field, in this case maintenance. So I want to purchase certain result rather than their time. And they. What’s in the contract now? It’s merely a technical and business decision, so as long as it is clear, crystal clear, and then it is also some work to do because often technical people, business people, maybe what they write is clear in their mind, not on paper. So there is also some work to do there, but as long as it is clear it’s a business decision affected, it’s a technical decision and then a liability. Now I know that as lawyers, we will like to see something like, yeah, the contractor will take any and everything, every liability. If something bad happens, you can charge them millions and millions until they go bankrupt. But this is not what happens in reality. It’s not reasonable. It’s not a reasonable expectation, let’s say. So what I would like to see is at least that they take responsibility for what they do. They correct their mistakes. If they do, if they make mistakes for free, of course, free of charge. And then there. Are there some compensation, at least for the material damages? If you break my machine at least up to a certain liability cap, you should pay for it. Mm-Hmm.

Mike Whelan [00:11:14] Perfect. So setting the stage right, as you said, we’re doing this. There’s a book by a guy named Russell L. Ackoff Called Idealized Design, and he talks about how we use these kinds of principles. When he was at AT&T by accident, a lot. It’s actually a really cool story you can find on YouTube. But but the point is he is going through and just throwing Post-it Notes up on the wall right of like, this is what I want to get out of this. If I had to start from zero, he uses these principles. So you’re doing this, which I like as a councilor, you’re not. You’re not letting the document lead you and just pinging back and forth with the document. You’re you’re leading with what you want out of this thing. So we’ll pivot over to to actual documents and say, assuming we’ve done this first step of what we want from inputs versus outputs, what’s what is the purpose of the document? How is the liability going to be divided up in a document I would love? Let’s talk about these two particular documents. Set the stage for me a little bit about what these two documents are. Another different, but to your point, there’s enough similarities to say that these are universal considerations.

Vincenzo Viglione [00:12:25] Yes, yes, indeed. So did the subject matter of these two. I mean, they are both maintenance contracts or the let’s say they are in the same playing field, but the subject matter is very different, which I believe is also interesting. I also I chose them for also for this reason because it shows that these concerns are universal. So it’s something that can be really interesting for everyone.

Mike Whelan [00:12:54] Perfect. And let’s see. The first one is, HVAC systems scheduled service agreement and the other one. The other one is like a machinery service agreement in the

Vincenzo Viglione [00:13:06] production of production equipment.

Mike Whelan [00:13:08] Awesome. OK. So let’s go through them. And you had mentioned if we’re digging into the difference between inputs and outputs. What are you seeing in these two different documents? Do you like one of them better than the other in terms of focus on inputs versus outputs?

Vincenzo Viglione [00:13:25] Yeah. So if we start from the the first points or input special outputs labor versus versus result? And we first pay attention to contract a, we see that in the very first pages, you’ll see a nice executive summary and scope of service section. This is a very it’s a very smart drafting indeed because these catches the attention of the the business person of the buyer of the technical person. And if I read this section, I really think that, OK, they’re promising certain results here because they say, you know, you can save up to 80 percent of your budget with us. They also say you can prevent unplanned, unplanned downtime downtime. This is very interesting and these are results. This is what I was talking about. But but if we then go and we check the fine print. So the real terms and conditions, what we see in the section performance, you see that actually, what’s the content of the performance that this contractor is promising to you is that they then will perform the services in accordance with industry standards and generally applicable in the state or province where the services are provided. And by the way, this is peculiar. So why your service changes depending on the place you find providing the services in? I don’t know Guatemala with all due respect to the people, so you can have a lower threshold of. OK, this is the. It is not the point. So the point is that you’ll see that they promise the content of the of the contract is the performance of the services that you don’t see any promise, any any result. They don’t tell you you will achieve at least 12 percent. So conversely, if we look at the other contracts, so contract B and we look at section section four, you’ll see that you have actually a promising result because they they are promising you a certain availability down. So they are telling you with our services you will call, you will be able to use your machine for a certain period of time. Now, of course, this has to be defined in the other sections in the commercial and technical sections, but you see the content of the all of the contract series result. So I think this is closer to our ideal and to our initial intention.

Mike Whelan [00:16:01] Yeah, it’s interesting because the first one, I think it’s a train service agreement for the H-back system. The first one is almost like half sales copy, right? I mean, it’s I like it because it’s written for the decision maker, for the manager. But to your point, when you get down to the substance of it, I mean, the first one is mostly sales copyright. It’s it’s trying to get you to sign the agreement, but not necessarily outcomes based. So I like that distinction. Thinking about the next category where you’re talking about what’s in, what’s out in the document? Compare the two. Tell me how you feel about the difference between the two documents.

Vincenzo Viglione [00:16:38] Well, here I. I would say that they are both pretty well, pretty well written, and they are both pretty clear. You have in the first contract a nice appendix. We had all the possible services. Then I believe then that they will be like this. So the actual services that you will purchase, they will be selected somehow. The same goes for the other contracts. So they are they are both pretty clear. If we look at the two section 10, 17 18, so you’ll see the pretty well stated. What is the content of the content, what we are purchasing? Of course, this has to be checked with your expectations, or we need to be sure with the business and technical part and that everything they need is. But and of course, they can be also improved. So this is a good starting point. Let’s say I would never I never have fully satisfied with what I have, so I always try to improve it. But it’s a good starting point. So they I would say they are both. They are both good from this point of view.

Mike Whelan [00:17:44] Yeah. And to your point, I mean, it’s an interesting distinction between the two of them because, you know, in the one case, in the train service agreement, they a theme that keeps coming up in these conversations on the contractor down show is you need to go talk to the technical people inside your company, right? Because if they’re going to give a list of this is what’s included, then this is not right to your point. If it’s inputs based well, you need that technical know how to know what inputs inputs are the most important. Where with contract B to, to your point, the the other agreement, you know, they’re talking about outcomes. And so for them, you know, you just need to know that your machine’s going to run. So good point on on the distinction between the two of them and how much you need somebody technical in the company to come in and help you based on how that’s drafted in the third category. In the way that you’re sort of framing this in terms of decision making is the liability category. Tell me about the distinction between these two documents. Are you seeing something that you like and don’t like between the two of them?

Vincenzo Viglione [00:18:47] Yes. So first of all, in contract eight, we see certain exclusions and one which I really don’t like. Of course, it is debatable, but personally, I will not recommend to accept it is issues that were a really affecting the machine before they took over. They say, OK, these issues are excluded. I don’t agree because when you are when a maintenance contract or takes over a certain piece of equipment, they do all the checks. And in fact, somewhere else in the contract you, you read that they will do these initial inspection afterwards. It’s your problem. You are the expert. You’ll need to check everything. I believe that once you take over, it’s your machine to take care. Mm-Hmm. And if we look instead to the OK to the real liability that is offered to Section 11, you’ll see that probably the liability that they offer is just correcting they they’re wrong doing so, they simply say. We will not the compensation you might receive compensation, but we will not exceed the 12 month period preceding the date of occurrence for the service and for the rest, we will simply try to make things right. Let’s have a very different ease is our other our other agreement. So they take actually full responsibility and they will even apart from, of course, the usual the usual suspects, so they will not be liable for loss of production, loss of profits and consequential losses, which if you remember our terms of reference, I never fall. I never for a second believe that there they were possible. So I will never think of a contractor, which service maintenance contractor, which would pay probably ten dollars per hour, $70 per hour, depending on how skilled they are. It’s not possible. It’s not feasible that they will take over loss of production. So maybe millions in liability. So they they take on all the responsibility and accountability that I would like to see.

Mike Whelan [00:21:15] Hmm. That’s an interesting point, actually, because you did that idealized design step rather than going back and forth and negotiating a document just to feel like you won something right to push back and get some kind of labor that you don’t actually care about. You’re saying I as the legal commentator on these documents, I’m not going to screw up this this deal because it’s something that we didn’t even care about 10 minutes ago. That’s a really good point that the B, the other document, the shorter document. Again, this difference between is it the labor or the result, I think is is interesting. If you go to Section 19 thinking, big picture what I like about this this way that you’ve done this, this combination of doing some idealized design and then creating this sort of rubric, it makes it so you can make a decision as between two service providers and to the point of your article, add value through legal analysis, right? Like you can say, you know, this is better than that and you’re providing actual economic value. Tell me about how I might use this sort of rubric, this sort of thinking when I’ve got an individual document and I’m saying yes or no to an individual agreement with a company.

Vincenzo Viglione [00:22:31] Well, even even if we’d done individual agreement, you have, at least in your mind, what is your ideal position or at least your fallback position. So let’s say that you have an individual only one, you have an obligated choice. You only have one possible supplier. Again, difficult about possible, especially me being at work. So there the work you do, the preparation that you do in advance, maybe with your business and technical partner is you build your contract playbook so you detected issues that you really that are going to be important. You said, what is your ideal position? And then you think together, OK, what can we accept? If we try, we can see. But then the the supplier doesn’t want to change their mind. So what can we accept? And then and this is also important, in my opinion, you also define the red flags, so something that you can really not accept and it’s important to have red flags. I believe it’s important to have the flexibility of being able to say, OK, no, I walk away from this deal because if you know that you need to sign the contract and you need to sign with that supplier, yeah, era red, you’re really in tough position. So probably your process is not really robust if your process led you in that position in that situation.

Mike Whelan [00:24:06] Yeah, it reminds me a lot of when I did litigation, I would prepare clients for mediation and we would always define an advance like what is our minimum bar that we want? What is an ideal like if we could make this up from scratch? What does that look like? What’s the distance between those two by by doing this process that you’re talking about, where you’re coming in with ideas? And then, you know, making the document react to you as opposed to you being reactionary to the document? It’s a really interesting way to add value thinking big principles. Well, I will say you scored this and we’ll share this table with you guys. You scored this. Tell me about the results of the scoring and the decision making between do I use contract a or contract B in this case?

Vincenzo Viglione [00:24:52] Yes, this is a very basic scoring. So if you if you read the article, I also offer a more nuanced. You can also define a more complex set of scoring, but these are very basic, so basic scoring. So I say, OK, is it more or less close to the ideal? The premise driven provision in the contract in each country? Is it more or less close to the ideal yes or no? And you can see that Contrave scores three points because basically I am fully satisfied with all the three issues how the contract tackles the three issues while contract a well, not not really. Not as good as the contract could be, but this is only for from a legal perspective, that doesn’t mean that we will go. The company will sign contract. This is only only one element because of course, the the buyer will have to consider the price. They will have also to consider the the technical side that so maybe, maybe contract or a offers a cheaper price. There may be more reliable, more experienced. So it doesn’t mean that you will go with contract B. But from a legal perspective, if I have, if I get to vote, I will vote for contact B. And yeah, just maybe one big picture, bigger picture thought purchasing, I believe, is very difficult. I believe it’s more difficult than selling. So I’m talking about it from a legal perspective, but also from a company perspective. So because companies, normally they sell only one product or service on one category of products or service while they purchase everything from food for the cafeteria to H.R. services to it. So I believe that purchasing is much more difficult and this kind of interaction and of teamwork, they are really important too, to take the result. Hmm.

Mike Whelan [00:26:56] Awesome. I appreciate that. And like I mentioned, we will definitely include a link to the article you wrote about adding value, legal value to the company through procurement processes and analyzing those. If people want to reach out to you or contact you directly to talk about your work about these issues of procurement, what’s the best way to connect with you?

Vincenzo Viglione [00:27:16] They can connect me with me on LinkedIn or via email so we can share the v.viglione@live.it so we can send the email. And I’m happy to discuss maybe, maybe people don’t think don’t see things eye to eye, and it might be an interesting discussion.

Mike Whelan [00:27:34] Yes, I want to see the throwdown between two LinkedIn buddies about the drama of procurement contracts. Vincenzo, thank you for the time. Thank all of you for watching the contract down show. Remember, you guys can find information about this episode and every other episode over at LawInsider.com/resources. Also, if you want to be like my buddy Vincenzo here and come beat up a document. Just email us. We’re at community@LawInsider.com. Thank you again, Vincenzo. We will see you guys next time.