This Working Life: How to save time, money and heartache by resolving conflicts before they reach court

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) provides a range of resolution processes for small businesses and other parties who find themselves at loggerheads

Alternative dispute resolution has the advantages of being private, quicker, cheaper, less adversarial and more efficient than the traditional court process. Picture: Getty

From time to time, the owners of SMEs will have to deal with disputes with external suppliers. Such situations are thankfully rare, but when they do arise they need to be addressed, ideally quickly and inexpensively.

In most cases differences are the result of a simple misunderstanding, and with early discussion can be resolved quickly. Sometimes they can escalate into a dispute that requires diplomacy and negotiation to resolve, but occasionally there is no agreement ...