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About

World Commerce & Contracting is a not for profit association and the only global body promoting standards and raising capabilities in commercial practice.

We inspire individuals and organizations through our research and ideas.

We equip our members with knowledge and networks that support successful contracts and commercial relationships.

Trade and trading relationships are at the foundation of human society, enabling prosperity and driving social benefit.

Tim Cummins, President, World Commerce & Contracting

Our Purpose:
Better contracts, better business, better society

We believe in a world where all trading relationships deliver both social and economic benefit.

We provide a home for a diverse community of commercial and contract professionals as well as procurement and legal practitioners – a home for all those who truly and collectively represent commerce.

We seek to identify and promote the international standards and practices for defining, managing and improving trading relationships.

Harnessing the collective knowledge of our members, we develop and communicate leading and emerging practices that support economic growth and successful, ethical, and sustainable outcomes.

Find out more about our Advocacy work

Our strategy

As an association:

We seek to influence and contribute to the growing body of rules and practices within which global trade operates while inspiring and encouraging commercial innovation.

Together these represent the commercial competence that is critical to any organization.

We seek to transform contracts and the contracting process, such that they become instruments of fair dealing, that they themselves, and the process surrounding them, promote trust, generate economic benefit and support social inclusion.

Read our Strategy

What we do

Our work and members cover the full lifecycle of a trading relationship, embracing both buy and sell-side.

We champion collaborative relationships that benefit all parties. We do this by encouraging respectful engagement and reducing conflict through a shared understanding.

Research is at the heart of our work. Relevant, rigorous and high impact, our pioneering insights shape policy and deliver better practice worldwide.

We seek to fulfil our purpose and achieve our vision through:

Raising awareness (advocacy, research and analytics, publications, speaking)
Creating standards (working groups, certification, contract standards, models and principles)
Increasing insight (events, member networking, benchmarks, analytics, education)

Our story

Historically, there was no single body that recognized ‘commercial and contract management’ as a discipline. That changed in 1999 when the International Association of Contract and Commercial Managers Inc. (IACCM) was founded by Tim Cummins as a not for profit association.

Since that time, it has become the go to global resource for innovation in trading relationships and contracting practices.

Our organization and scope continues to grow, as does our member community. Our members expressed the need for a simpler and easier name to convey this expanding mission, which led to a change in 2020 to World Commerce & Contracting.

Read our story

Our global team is here to support you, wherever you are in the world.

Our team

The World Commerce & Contracting team is a group of diverse individuals, passionate and committed in their support of our members and the mission of the association.

Its leaders bring extensive cross industry experience, managing contract and commercial teams, leading multinational transformation programs and supporting small business growth.

Meet our team

Governance

Our members

Diverse input delivers creative solutions, so we are inclusive, welcoming everyone who has an interest in better commerce, contracting and trading relationships. Independent, provocative and disciplined, we exist for our members, the commerce and contracting community and society at large.

Our Community

Our funding

World Commerce & Contracting is a not for profit association, funded by its members and through external research commissions with spending governed by our objectives.

How we are funded

How we spend our money

World Commerce & Contracting (formerly IACCM) is the best investment I’ve made in Latin America. Year after year, my team is becoming more and more equipped and stronger. ROI and quality are indisputable – great partnership!

Leandro Doca, Vice President, Capgemini Brazil
The association opened the door to a broader community of professionals, enabling me and my companies to learn and apply cross industry best practices. The training programs proved excellent and cost effective in raising the skills and performance of my teams.

Dave Connor, Contract Management, Chevron And Chief Procurement Officer, BP
Contract Management skill is not only a capacity of the legal departments, but of all areas involved in the contracting process. The support received from World Commerce & Contracting (formerly IACCM) when designing all our processes has been critical.

Salvador del Valle, CMI
The current pandemic is taking various fields of human endeavor to uncharted territories; there is need for a lot of fast learning of process needed to navigate even beyond these times and World Commerce & Contracting (formerly IACCM) with its collaborators in Africa have discussed we and agreed that trade relations can succeed.

Chukwunonso Henry Nkamuke, Nigeria, AFRICA