Explanation
Avoiding is unassertive and uncooperative. When avoiding, an individual does not immediately pursue his or her own concerns or those of the other person. He or she does not address the conflict. Avoiding might take the form of diplomatically sidestepping an issue, postponing an issue until a better time, or simply withdrawing from a threatening situation.
LO 1, AC 1.1

Explanation
Macroeconomic indicators are statistics or data readings that reflect the economic circumstances of a particular country, region or sector. They are used by analysts and governments to assess the current and future health of the economy and financial markets.
Macroeconomic indicators will vary in their meaning and the impact that they have on the economy, but broadly speaking there are two main types of indicator.
- Leading indicators, which forecast where an economy might be heading. They are often used by governments to implement policies because they represent the first phase of a new economic cycle. These include the yield curve, interest rates and share prices.
- Lagging indicators, which reflect an economy's historical performance and only change after a trend has been established. They are used to confirm a trend is underway. These include gross domestic product (GDP), inflation and employment figures.
There is also the category of coincident indicators, but these are generally grouped in with lagging indicators as they either happen at the same time or after an economic shift.
The best macroeconomic indicator to watch will heavily depend on your personal preferences, what positions you are taking and which country your portfolio is focused on. However, there are some very common indicators that most traders and investors will keep an eye on.
For simplicity's sake, we have split these out into leading and lagging indicators.
Top leading indicators:
1. The stock market
2. House prices
3. Bond yields
4. Production and manufacturing statistics
5. Retail sales
6. Interest rates
Top laggingindicators:
1. GDP growth rates
2. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) and inflation
3. Currency strength and stability
4. Labour market statistics
5. Commodity prices
A procurement professional may find stock market data from the security exchange, whilemost lagging indicators (such as GDP, CPI, unemployment rate, currency and inflation rate, etc) can be found from government statistics data.

Direct costs are those costs of a product/service directly attributable/traceable to its production, for example, the costs of labour and materials directly used to produce the goods/services which the organisation sells.

Explanation
Fixed price contract is the contract in which the price is static throughout the contract period. A fixed-price contract may give certainty to budget and simplify contract management. However, it may lead to other problems since it requires bidders to estimate and bear the financial risks associated with price escalations. If the estimates are too high or events do not materialize, the buyer will pay a steep price that may affect the economy and efficiency of the contract. In the worst case, it may mean that the bid price is then above budget and may lead to a reduction in the requirements or rebidding. If the estimates are too low, it may appear as an abnormally low bid and disrupt contract execution.
On the other hand, price adjustment provisions include formulas designed to address problems, and can protect both theborrower and contractors from price fluctuations. Price adjustment formulas allow contractors to offer more realistic prices at the time of bidding. Despite concerns that they may lead to budget uncertainties, price adjustment formulas will estimate the actual cost implications that will be encountered. They use indexes that can be used for cost projection.
According to Asia Development Bank (ADB), any contract with a delivery or completion period beyond 18 months should contain an appropriate price adjustment clause.
In the scenario, the crude oil contract is planned to last 36 months. This period is pretty long with a fluctuating commodity. Therefore, the company should use price adjustment agreement.

According to Paul Steele's 'The Seller's Perspective', customer can be classified into 4 categories as below:
Chart, treemap chart Description automatically generated

In this scenario, although SBL's spend claims large portion in suppliers' revenues, their draconian treatment will reduce SBL's attractiveness in supplier's perspective.SBL falls into Exploit quadrant. With exploitable customers, suppliers tend to 'milk' the customer and charge a high price to compensate for all the pain customer put on them.