Many owners, management companies, and developers don’t have the manpower or budget to bring on an in-house ancillary service and contracting expert, so they rely on current staff to handle negotiating agreements.
Many times, the staff is spread so thin already and they don’t have the time, energy, or knowledge base to dedicate to negotiating a quality agreement. So, they either just sign what the provider gives them or the proposal/contract sits on the employee’s desk for months as more “important issues arise”.
This usually leaves an owner or property management company having:
(i) poor agreement terms and language,
(ii) multiple agreements with the same provider, but all with different terms and agreement language,
(iii) multiple providers with multiple agreements, terms, and language,
(iv) multiple providers on the same property for the same service offering (which can put them in default with both providers),
(v) generating less revenue or savings than they could have achieved.
Having the ability to enable someone to spend time reviewing and evaluating your entire portfolio to see where an opportunity may exist, evaluating all aspects of a service, crafting an RFP (and using your buying power to get better terms), gathering and evaluating proposals and ensuring a quality agreement is executed and then managing the agreement and provider are critical to a successful program…shameless plug to justify ASM’s existence:).