Have you ever given thought to a career in contract management? If you haven't, you should; because a contract manager pulls down an average of $83,000 a year.

The considerable average salary enjoyed by contract managers no doubt reflects their hefty responsibilities. They must manage contracts companies enter into with customers, employees, partners, and vendors.

The finer points of contract management include, specifically:

• Negotiating a contract's terms and conditions;
• Ensuring compliance with a contract's terms and conditions;
• Documentation of and agreement upon changes or amendments that arise during the implementation or execution of a contract's terms and conditions.

In its most comprehensive sense, contract management can be described as the work or managing, with a view to optimum efficiency and systematicity, the creation, execution and analysis of contracts for two purposes:

1. Maximizing how well a company performs operationally and financially;

2. Minimizing the risk faced by a company as consequence of entering into a contract.

Contract managers not only carry a lot of responsibility; they command a lot of respect. "Writing contracts has always been an adventure for me," writes Kevin J. Lyons in his 2000 book, "Buying for the Future." Lyons confesses to relish "the power to negotiate contracts for a variety of goods of services from around the world," because this power is at the same time "the power to make significant changes" (however you understand that last term). These changes can be as sweeping or as minute as they need to be, and it'll be your task as a contract manager to determine this.

Indeed, it's difficult to overstate your importance as a contract manager. Contracts function as the binding medium for virtually all transactions in the world. Employment, sales, government projects, partnerships, and mergers and acquisitions - these and other kinds of contract businesses absolutely rely on.

The centrality of contracts in economic life means that contract management professionals are aggressively sought by organizations of all sorts. Specific focuses for contract managers include document management, baseline management, issue management, and transaction compliance. As the economy becomes ever more transnational in character, and as contracts grow correpondingly ever more complex, contract management professionals find themselves in ever greater demand by companies interested in overcoming the challenges of international contract law and its compliance.

"Finding the right contractor is complicated ... cheaper may not be better or faster, and better may end up costing more," observe Steven Cohen and William B. Eimicke in their 2008 book, "The Responsible Contract Manager."

Finding the right contractor begins with reaching consensus among a broad range of stakeholders on the objectives for the services to be contracted. Next, the effective contract manager must find appropriate methods to measure contractor performance. Finally, the contract manager must identify effective incentives and penalties to ensure that the contractor achieves the desired outcomes

As should be apparent to you by now, the duties of a contract management professional are extremely crucial to trafficking in a digitized global economy. As a contract management degree holder you'll be entering a robust and growing career field. Such success you no doubt could manage to enjoy!