Management Consultants - Partnering
The concept of “business partnering” was originally adopted in the 80’s by companies such as Dow Chemicals and DuPont.
Challenge: An international engineering maintenance provider had been successful in tendering for the provision of outsourced maintenance services to a number of large scale Australian manufacturers. In support of the legal contract, the partnering process establishes the working relationship between the parties through a mutually developed formal strategy for commitment and communication. The companies were seeking a process that would minimise the potential adversarial nature of relationships between employees and contractors and to create an ethical commitment by all parties to act in the best interests of the business alliance.
Method: As management consultants we designed, conducted and facilitated, an initial three day residential workshop involving all key players, from tradespeople to senior management. This involved aligning the three elements critical to successful partnering: environment (culture, strategy, structure), people (involving the right people and teamwork), processes (balance between structure and flexibility, supported reproducible processes). Followed by two monthly, 1 day workshops to discuss and review progress, fill gaps, innovate further and continually challenge the ongoing effectiveness of the process(es).
Outcomes: Through these methods our management consultants were able to create productive relationships, agreed strategy, processes and measures benchmarked against world best practice. Initiatives that enhanced existing business strengths through continuous incremental improvements. Removal of confrontational and adversarial work practices. Return-on-investment not limited solely to profitability, but also on how the success of partnering leads to creating more employment opportunities because of expanded preventative maintenance.