u/CalmSimple6942

Genuine question: what is the actual purpose of this type of team?

In theory, I understand the value of strong commercial governance: pricing discipline, contract risk awareness, margin protection, deal-shaping support, lessons learned, and making sure teams do not commit to poor-quality commercial terms.

But in practice, I’m struggling to understand what this function adds that is genuinely distinct from Legal, Delivery Excellence, Industry/OP leads, Finance, Risk, or the client-facing engagement team.

Legal already handles contract negotiation and legal risk.

Delivery Excellence / engagement leadership already shapes delivery models, scope, assumptions, dependencies and delivery risk.

OP/ Industry already challenges pricing, margin, recovery and commercials.

The client-facing team already understands the client, the opportunity and the actual deal dynamics.

So where does Commercial Excellence actually sit?

Is it meant to own commercial strategy, or just comment from the sidelines?

Is it there to shape deals, or simply ask late-stage questions?

Is it meant to provide expert commercial judgement, or just act as another internal checkpoint before a proposal can move forward?

The reason I ask is that I’ve seen this kind of function turn up to commercial clinics and ask questions that suggest limited practical commercial, contract negotiation or delivery experience. Sometimes the questions feel less like expert challenge and more like process theatre: “Have you considered pricing this differently?”, “What is the commercial rationale?”, “Have Legal reviewed this?”, “Are the assumptions clear?”

So I’m genuinely interested: what is the differentiated value of a Commercial Excellence function in T&T?

Do they actually shape better deals?

Do they reduce risk?

Do they improve margin?

Do they bring specialist negotiation expertise?

Or do they mainly exist as another internal approval layer that says “what are we pricing this work for?” without owning the commercial outcome?

Would be interested to hear from others who have worked with similar teams. What do they do well? Where do they add value? And where do they become unnecessary bureaucracy?

Has anyone worked with a UK T&T “Commercial Excellence” function?

Genuine question: what is the actual purpose of this type of team?

In theory, I understand the value of strong commercial governance: pricing discipline, contract risk awareness, margin protection, deal-shaping support, lessons learned, and making sure teams do not commit to poor-quality commercial terms.

But in practice, I’m struggling to understand what this function adds that is genuinely distinct from Legal, Delivery Excellence, Industry/OP leads, Finance, Risk, or the client-facing engagement team.

Legal already handles contract negotiation and legal risk.

Delivery Excellence / engagement leadership already shapes delivery models, scope, assumptions, dependencies and delivery risk.

OP/ Industry already challenges pricing, margin, recovery and commercials.

The client-facing team already understands the client, the opportunity and the actual deal dynamics.

So where does Commercial Excellence actually sit?

Is it meant to own commercial strategy, or just comment from the sidelines?

Is it there to shape deals, or simply ask late-stage questions?

Is it meant to provide expert commercial judgement, or just act as another internal checkpoint before a proposal can move forward?

The reason I ask is that I’ve seen this kind of function turn up to commercial clinics and ask questions that suggest limited practical commercial, contract negotiation or delivery experience. Sometimes the questions feel less like expert challenge and more like process theatre: “Have you considered pricing this differently?”, “What is the commercial rationale?”, “Have Legal reviewed this?”, “Are the assumptions clear?”

So I’m genuinely interested: what is the differentiated value of a Commercial Excellence function in T&T?

Do they actually shape better deals?

Do they reduce risk?

Do they improve margin?

Do they bring specialist negotiation expertise?

Or do they mainly exist as another internal approval layer that says “what are we pricing this work for?” without owning the commercial outcome?

Would be interested to hear from others who have worked with similar teams. What do they do well? Where do they add value? And where do they become unnecessary bureaucracy?