business relationships based upon a collaborative approach. Background to BS ... methodology to underpin successful busi
BS 11000: Collaborative Business Relationships Standard
The Centre of Excellence for Collaborative Working
Les Pyle David Hawkins Chief Executive Knowledge Architect About the Institute The Institute (formally Partnership Sourcing Limited‐ PSL) was established in 1990 as a joint initiative between the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) now BIS (Department for Business Innovation and Skills) and the CBI (Confederation of British Industry). It is totally self financing operating as a not‐for‐profit organisation. The Institute’s continuing role is to help organisations, large and small, in both the public and private sectors, to build and develop effective competitive business relationships based upon a collaborative approach.
Our Vision Collaborative Working recognised as a fundamental business discipline necessitating a structured methodology to underpin successful business relationships. Benefits of working with BS 11000 Collaborative business relationships have been shown to deliver a wide range of benefits, which enhance competitiveness and performance whilst adding value to organisations of all sizes. The publication of the BS 11000 is a landmark for business as the first National Standard in the world. It does not represent a one‐size solution, but provides a consistent framework, which can be scaled and adapted to meet particular business needs.
Background to BS 11000 The Journey to BS 11000 starts back in 2004 where ICW started to collect together its knowledge to establish a route map for collaborative working, which resulted in the launch of CRAFT a unique and integrated approach to building and sustaining more effective business relationships. This coincided with a research project ‘Future Connections’ highlighting the growth and demand for more complex business operating models moving towards 2020. Against this backdrop ICW was pleased to engage with the British Standards Institution (BSI) with concept of developing a national standard, initially published as PAS 11000 (2006). ICW continued its association with BSI to create a certification scheme, piloted successfully in 2009, and then to chair the BSI committee to migrate to BS 11000 published in 2010. Our relationship with BSI is now focused on the development of an ISO standard.
Collaboration between organisations may take many forms from loose tactical approaches through to longer term alliances or joint ventures. BS 11000 does not enforce a single rigid approach and recognises that every relationship has its own unique considerations whilst harnessing a range of benefits. For those organisations with well established processes the framework provides a common language that can aid engagement whilst for those starting out on the framework creates a road map for the journey.
The Eight stage Framework
Engagement
The standards lifecycle model is structured in three phases (Strategic, Engagement and Management) with the objective of creating a robust platform to maximise the benefits of collaborative working by supporting the culture and behaviours necessary to optimise integration.
PARTNER SELECTION Finding the right partner is critical but frequently is based on assumptions or long standing traditional relationships that can simply migrate. Often this is not the case so it is important to understand the profile you are looking for and how you will evaluate their capability to collaborate. WORKING TOGETHER Establishing Joint governance for collaborative programmes and integrating this with effective contracting arrangements requires careful attention taking into consideration the joint objectives and those of the individual partners, and ensuring the incentives and measurement will support collaborative behaviours.
Strategic
Management
AWARNESS Effectively relating with external organisations can be challenging and can be constrained by internal barriers. It is crucial to ensure that efforts are focused on those relationships where collaboration will deliver real value.
VALUE CREATION
KNOWLEDGE Creating effective collaboration requires strategies that are focused on the business objectives and recognises the risks associated with greater integration including knowledge management and business continuity, underpinned by an exit strategy to identify key concerns. INTERNAL ASSESSMENT Understanding the strength and weaknesses of our own organisations is critical if collaboration is to be successful. This includes processes, skills and experience compatible with the desired outcomes.
Joint management is crucial if relationships are to mature and support people and the business environment. Effective performance and behaviours should be monitored along with issues and disputes which will be inevitable but can strengthen relationships if handled effectively.
The key to maintaining a strong relationship is to ensure that it remains current and drives innovation to bring additional value to the partners through joint continual improvement programmes. STAYING TOGETHER
EXIT STRATEGY Maintaining a joint exit strategy is important to keep the partners focused. At the same time having clear rules for disengagement will frequently improve engagement throughout the life of the relationship and into the future.
Observations from early adopters of BS 11000 This standard offers an innovative, structured approach to Relationship Management has the potential to yield transformational long term benefits – Selex ‐SI.
BS 11000 sets out a framework that will enable companies like ours to apply good practice principles to its own way of working, and has wide applications on how to manage valuable business relationships ‐ EMCOR The biggest single benefit of working to BS11000 is the requirement for greater structure and process in the management of the relationship ‐ Network Rail Adopting BS11000 was a “no‐brainer” and doing so will demonstrate to our customers that we do what we say‐ Costain BS11000 provides a framework and a language to improve the way we create and sustain our collaborative business relationships
Raytheon has a strong collaborative working culture, adoption of this standard has provided 'structure to our culture' Certification and adoption of BS11000 supports our strategic aims – Raytheon Systems BS11000 supports our ‘innovating for growth’ strategy through successfully demonstrating the benefits of its collaborative capabilities and practices‐ NATS BS 11000 gives us a ‘universally’ recognised structure and the catalyst to develop the next stage of our collaborative working capabilities
– Balfour Beatty
‐ Skanska The BS11000 standard has provided us with a framework for implementing and objectively measuring the benefits of collaborative working ‐ Lockheed Martin.
In pursuit of aspiring to our values and in particular “Partnering”, BS11000 was an obvious choice. As an SME any decision that potentially adds cost to our business must add value we made the decision that adopting the standard was the way forward.‐RAILTECH
