Reignite Business Performance for Competitive Edge Business Partnering. Executive Summary

Transcription

1 Reignite Business Performance for Competitive Edge Business Partnering Executive Summary An Exclusive Networking event by sponsored by

2 Introduction Business Partnering: a definition The development of successful, long-term, strategic relationships between customers and suppliers, based on achieving best practice and sustainable competitive advantage. Tony Lendrum, Strategic Partnering Pty. Ltd As the global economy emerges from recession and companies actively pursue growth once more, the pressure is on functional leaders to transcend their traditional responsibilities and contribute to the recovery of the business as a whole. Increasingly, this involves working in partnership with other functions and organisations. But how can businesses break down functional silos and encourage internal collaboration, while also working closely with customers, suppliers, outsourcing providers and other external partners? What type of leadership, environment and skill sets does this transformation require? And what are the challenges facing organisations seeking to make business partnering a reality? It was to consider these questions and share insights into the role of business partnering in driving corporate and functional performance that a group of senior executives from leading international companies gathered at Quaglino s restaurant in central London recently. Representing a variety of functions, from logistics to finance, HR to general management, participants in this round table discussion also had varied experience of business partnering. While some came from organisations that already lived and breathed collaboration, as one participant put it, others were less familiar with this approach and had come to learn more. This Executive Summary offers an overview of the Executive Briefing discussion, which was hosted by CorporateLeaders, the business transformation network, in partnership with Raytheon Professional Services. A series of articles exploring particular aspects of business partnering will follow shortly.

3 Setting the scene If you get to help the customer work on the strategic end of the process, then you really are working as a partner. Paul Swinscoe, Director of Sales and Marketing, Europe, Raytheon Professional Services. Jesper Lillelund, Partner at CorporateLeaders and moderator of the Executive Briefing, stated executives need to engage and integrate, more than ever, across the business to help design and execute business strategy for continued growth - this is where business partnering comes into play. Kicking off the discussion, Paul Swinscoe, Director of Sales and Marketing, Europe, for Raytheon Professional Services, quoted the author and consultant Tony Lendrum, who defined business partnering as the development of successful, long-term, strategic relationships between customers and suppliers, based on achieving best practice and sustainable competitive advantage. Genuine business partnerships cannot be short-term, Swinscoe stressed. You don t partner for a couple of weeks. That s called buying something or making a transaction, he said, adding that the word customers in Lendrum s definition can refer to both internal and external customers. Swinscoe s own organisation acts as an internal business partner by supplying training services to the entire Raytheon electronics and defence systems group, which employs around 80,000 people worldwide. By providing similar services to long-term clients such as General Motors, Raytheon Professional Services also acts as an external business partner. This involves not only delivering courses, but designing and implementing complete training solutions that help these clients meet their strategic objectives. If you get to help the customer work on the strategic end of the process, then you really are working as a partner, Swinscoe said. But you need to understand where the company is going so that you can understand what you as a provider can bring to help and support that. To derive sustainable competitive advantage from business partnering, he continued, customers, too, need to adopt appropriate behaviour and treat suppliers as real partners. If you treat them simply as suppliers then you will not get the interactions that move the business forward, he said.

4 Key steps to partnering success Purpose and alignment of objectives The business case Making sure that all those involved in a collaborative venture are clear about its purpose is the first step to achieving success, according to Philip Anderson, chairman of the Global Business Partnership Alliance (GBPA). In a presentation setting out the key elements of a business partnership, he acknowledged that achieving such clarity was often easier said than done. Yet unless the people involved have a shared understanding of why they are being asked to work together, they will not be motivated to collaborate and that goes for external, as much as for internal, collaboration There has to be some reason that stimulates collaboration, said Anderson. That could be a crisis or something more positive a sense that if we do this together, we are going to reach some place that we couldn t otherwise get to. Those taking part in the discussion agreed that whatever the aims and objectives of a partnering arrangement, they need to be understood and shared by all those involved. Describing how his organisation achieves this alignment internally, one participant said that the leaders of the business hold an annual meeting dedicated to discussing what they need from each other in order to achieve own goals. Another participant said his company makes sure that every manager has a goal related to another department, so that if they fail to work together, they cannot achieve all their goals. Organisations implement business partnering for a variety of reasons, including the following: To deal with a crisis To support business strategy To drive innovation To improve organisational performance To improve the performance of functions such as HR, Finance or Sales To reduce duplication of activities To achieve cost savings To break into new markets

5 Behaviour Collaborative behaviour and attitudes such as openness, a willingness to go the extra mile and, above all, trust, are equally important elements of successful business partnering. Drawing on findings from his organisation s research into successful collaborative relationships, Anderson highlighted the attitudes that underpin trust, including mutual commitment and respect. Once trust is established, integrity and honesty will help to maintain it, while clear and transparent communications can support its development. Anderson cited The speed of trust, a book by Stephen M.R. Covey, to argue that trust adds value by helping organisations get things done quickly. That, in turn, reduces costs. The opposite is also true, with low trust reducing speed and agility and so driving up costs. But establishing and maintaining trust is never easy. It takes time to build trust, but it s one of the easiest things to destroy, Anderson warned. Cultural understanding If a business partnership is to achieve its goals, there has to be clarity on both sides about individuals roles and responsibilities. Philip Anderson, chairman of the Global Business Partnership Alliance (GBPA) Cultural differences can undermine partnerships, not only between organisations but sometimes even between functions or departments within the same organisation. Cultural fit therefore needs to be considered when organisations choose partners. The individuals involved in the partnering arrangement then need to develop an understanding of each other s organisational or departmental culture, as well as sensitivity to it. This is especially important in the context of cross-border collaboration the subject of one of the forthcoming articles on aspects of business partnering. Clarity of roles, responsibilities and resources If a business partnership is to achieve its goals, there has to be clarity on both sides about individuals roles and responsibilities. As Anderson pointed out, confusion over roles can cause real difficulties. One reason for such confusion, he added, was that different organisations often use the same job titles to describe quite distinct roles. An HR Manager, for instance, may be a member of the leadership team in one organisation, but a lowly administrator in another. So making sure all concerned understand who does what - and what resources they can command to do it - is another key step on the road to business partnering. Leveraging capabilities and strengths Before embarking on a collaborative venture, the parties need to identify their own capabilities and strengths, which ideally should complement, rather than duplicate, those of their new partners. This will enable them to fill gaps in their own capabilities.

6 Governance, processes and systems A partnership is about individuals and how they relate, and at the heart of that is how they communicate. Philip Anderson, chairman of the Global Business Partnership Alliance (GBPA) The processes and systems that organisations use to assess and reward their people can stimulate collaborative behaviour. Yet very often they do the opposite, according to Anderson. If your business needs collaboration, rewarding people for being silobased is disastrous, he said. On the other hand, when asked whether there were organisational structures that either helped or hindered collaboration, Anderson said he doubted whether structures in themselves made much difference. Leadership was more important, both in terms of sponsoring collaborative ways of working and of setting the tone through individual leaders own behaviour, he said. Communication Effective communication is the glue that holds any business partnership together. As Anderson said: Any relationship is about people. Institutions don t partner. Departments don t partner. Functions in businesses don t partner. A partnership is about individuals and how they relate, and at the heart of that is how they communicate. Participants mentioned the role of social media, video conferencing and other technologies in bringing people together and enabling them to share knowledge. While these technologies are no substitute for face-to-face communication when it comes to building relationships, they are clearly encouraging greater collaboration, especially in organisations with geographically dispersed populations. Creating a collaborative culture The business leaders taking part in the discussion agreed that many of the attitudes and skills needed for successful business partnering can be learnt. One participant described her organisation s use of simulations and what if scenarios to provide people with a safe environment in which to explore collaborative relationships and so change their behaviour. That s more powerful than telling people how they should behave, she said. Other contributors to the discussion spoke of how cross-functional project teams had played a part in breaking down silos - and the mindset that goes with them - in their organisations. Changing this mindset is clearly essential if a culture that is conducive to internal collaboration is to take root in an organisation. But is there a link between such a culture and external business partnering? As one participant asked: Is it possible to be successful with external partnering without being equally successful with internal partnering? It may be possible but the discussion suggested that it is not very probable. Philip Anderson pointed out that a collaborative culture does sometimes develop in just one part of a business. It goes back to the question of what is the purpose of the relationship, how do we achieve that and who do we need to involve, he said. Quite often you find that you need to involve more people than you realised.

7 Taking the pulse A pulse survey of those taking part in the round table discussion showed that while their organisations still have some way to go before they become truly collaborative, the challenging economic climate of recent years has not led to a wholesale retreat into functional silos. Participants were asked: How would you characterise the business partnering capability of your own department and organisation as a whole? Their responses indicated that partnering capability tends to vary across different parts of the same organisation. While 53 per cent characterised their own department as completely collaborative, only 20 per cent described the organisation as a whole in this way. There was a much smaller gap between the proportion saying their department was more collaborative than siloed (47 per cent) and those describing the organisation in these terms (40 per cent). None of the respondents considered their department more siloed than collaborative but 40 per cent thought this description applied to the organisation as a whole. However, not a single respondent characterised either their department or organisation as completely siloed. Business partnering in practice Champions of business partnering claim that it can bring many benefits. In the case of internal collaboration, these include reducing duplication of activities, promoting knowledge sharing and fuelling innovation. According to one participant it can also improve the quality of an organisation s decision-making. In his own company, he said, the small group of people who make major decisions do not always consider all the possible alternatives. He thought this would change only if the organisation learned to collaborate internally. The benefits claimed for external partnering include helping organisations cut costs and break into new markets. But one senior manager taking part in the discussion asked if there was any real evidence of a correlation between collaboration and improved business performance. After all, he said, the major supermarket chains are hardly known for dealing with their suppliers collaboratively, yet they are hugely successful. The response from some of the other business leaders present was that not all relationships need to be collaborative. Some are by their very nature purely transactional. However, returning to the business practices of supermarkets, Philip Anderson predicted the emergence of retailers who would adopt a new business model that did not entail squeezing as much as they could out of suppliers, but working in partnership with them. If he is right, the future of retailing and, indeed of other sectors, could well lie in business partnering. Philip Anderson is Chairman, of the Global Business Partnership Alliance (GBPA) who help organisations deliver superior business results and reduce risk through the development of improved collaboration in their key internal and external relationships. Philip Anderson has extensive experience of meeting the challenges of collaboration and inter-company relationships, working across many major corporations and different geographies. This includes CEO of an insurance joint venture in SE Asia, managing partner of an award winning consulting and technology business that he cofounded, and chairman of Global Business Partnership Alliance (GBPA). On behalf of GBPA, Philip facilitates initiatives to develop new insights into achieving greater business effectiveness and innovation through internal collaboration and business partnering. This includes acting as advisor, mentor and coach to senior executives, and facilitating the development of more effective relationships between customer organisations, key suppliers and outsourcing partners across Europe, the Americas, China and India.

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