The Art of Business Relationship Management: Shaping Business Demand for Your Services

For many years, IT organizations responsible for deploying technology systems to enable enterprise processes have had one goal in mind – namely, to assure business-IT alignment. Today, however, as IT capabilities become more and more embedded in business capabilities, and given the pace of technological change and the pervasive nature of IT, alignment is no longer sufficient. The goal today, therefore, is "convergence". This has given momentum to the growing emergence of the Business Relationship Management (BRM) role, which, according to the Business Relationship Management Institute (BRMI), is about "stimulating, surfacing and shaping business demand for a provider's products and services, ensuring that the potential business value from those products and services is captured, optimized and communicated." Let’s examine Business Relationship Management from two perspectives: the functional and the organizational role. The BRM function provides the framework for how the IT organization interacts with peer business functions and departments. The BRM role is made up of an elite leader or group of technology managers that assume accountability for all technology solutions and services end-to-end – whether for a business area, brand, region, channel or division, depending on organizational design and technology capabilities. This role can be facilitated by an existing Chief Information Officer (CIO) in smaller, less complex organizations. For large enterprises, you may see multiple levels of BRM — BRM Lead, BRM Manager or BRM Analyst. Each role may vary in responsibility and all are accountable for the strategic alignment with the enterprise or organization. [eventpdf] BRMs, on a day-to-day basis, deal with technology, people and relationships. As such, Business Relationship Management is more an art than a science, expressing the "art" via application of knowledge, interpersonal skills and creativity. How a BRM best connects to his or her business partners varies, based on the BRM, their client, the business scenario, level of previous engagement and the rapport established with each relationship. Trust through confidence is the secret to success. BRM Processes and Frameworks should be characterized by flexibility and a high variability of actions performed within the underlying processes. Within the BRM function, there is an inherent value to that variability. The nature of relationship management is fluid, dynamic, genuine and human. Dr. Aleksandr Zhuk, Co-Founder of the BRM Institute, sums it up: "No one has ever defined a process framework that assures success in relationships. Think of marriage." Business Relationship Management Process Framework Artistic process is characterized by its variability and flexibility, unlike systematic processes that tend to be more standardized. Making sure that those characteristics are represented is essential in building the Business Relationship Management Process Framework. First, we group together activities that represent day-to-day functions of a BR Manager. The four process groups are defined as Demand Shaping, Exploring, Servicing and Value Harvesting. These processes characterize a set of interrelated actions and activities performed by the BRM to carry out their key function of representing the provider organization to a business unit, and the business unit to the provider organization. If you look closely at the BRM Process Framework, the arrows that represent sequencing of the processes do not follow a straight line and are not logically sequenced. This is intentional! The Process begins with demand shaping, which centers a lot on business-IT alignment, followed by any of the other processes after that, depending on the business situation. Demand Shaping or Aligning is the only process explicitly indicated as the starting point. This is crucial to understanding and setting appropriate expectations that work being done is aligned with desired business outcomes or value. This does not imply that on a daily basis, a BRM needs to work on aligning. In most cases there is an assumed alignment or understanding when this step is being executed. Demand Shaping – process group consists of processes performed to align business and IT strategies, design service portfolio, and nurture business IT service relationships. Within the demand shaping process, the business service partnership is established and communicated properly by both parties. Stakeholders in both the provider and business organizations are identified. With BRM role as facilitator, the stakeholders will help shape demand and influence supply capabilities. The key purpose of this process is to align business partner expectations with the provider service offering and portfolio, give them visibility and ensure best communication. Exploring – process group consists of processes performed to identify and rationalize demand. The BRM role helps apply business and technology trends to facilitate discovery and demand management. The exploring process is an iterative and ongoing process that facilitates the review of new business, industry and technology insights with the potential to create value for the business environment. The key benefit of this process is the identification of value initiatives that will become part of the business IT portfolio. This also allows the BRM to lead with technology and enlighten business partners on solution opportunities that they may not be privy to. Servicing – process group consists of processes performed by the BRM role as connector, orchestrator and navigator between the business and provider organization. The BRM’s connector function involves coordinating people, resources, managing business partner expectations, as well as integrating and performing activities in accordance to the business service partnership. As orchestrator, the BRM ensures engagements that shape business demands and then translates them into effective supply requirements. During the servicing process, the BRM facilitates business strategy and road mapping with the business as well as facilitates portfolio and program management for the provider organization. Value Harvesting – process group consists of processes required to ensure success of business change initiatives that result from the previous exploring and servicing engagements. The value harvesting process also includes activities to track, review performance, identify areas that increase value of business outcomes and initiate feedback that triggers continuous improvement cycles. This process provides stakeholders insights to results of business change and initiatives. [eventpdf] Challenges of Business Relationship Management You may have heard stories of IT organizations not having time for the business colleagues they support due to the volume of projects and/or initiatives in their portfolio. This type of thinking limits IT and leads peer business functions to create shadow IT organizations. These shadow organizations may take many forms, including working with third parties that host company data, which may include intellectual property. Another could be adopting mobile solutions (also known as free apps) where Terms and Conditions clearly state any data entered into the application belongs to the developer or development firm. This causes loss of company data due to overlooking fine print of the solution when procured by business colleagues. Challenges with creating shadow IT organizations are often disregarded because of the perceived low cost. As another example, Big Data is marketed as a means to improve business and includes a free trial and simple cancelation policy that seems safe and attractive. Unfortunately, a free trial may result in giving away strategic processes that can be marketed to competitors. On the provider side, BRMs may face challenges where their IT colleagues may have established deep-rooted relationships with providers that now have the BRMs as their primary point of contact. When BRMs come from IT, they tend to spend more time with other business colleagues than they previously spent with their internal technology peers. Historically, if the organization has had IT on one side and the business on another, rather than appreciating a BRM as an orchestrator, the BRM may be viewed as a traitor "going to the other side". Being disjointed from IT may encourage the perception that BRMs are misrepresenting IT when collaborating with business colleagues. This is a self-inflicted challenge when it happens. The BRM is there to bridge worlds and avoid painting a negative picture of IT. We are advocates of the technology solution providers. The BRM’s role is to be accountable for wins as well as losses or failures of IT. The BRM’s approach should be, "It's on my watch and I OWN it!" regardless of praise or pain. It is essential to establish and sustain trust between the BRMs and their stakeholders among business units and providers. If you don’t, you could be setting yourself up for failure. BRM competencies, as defined by Business Relationship Management Institute (BRMI), are excellent trust building mechanisms. Here are three of the competencies: Business IQ – The foundation of trust is your credibility and knowledge of your areas of expertise expected by both provider and business partner. If you understand the business and processes, you can speak their language. Provider domain knowledge – You gain the trust of your provider organization the same way you do for your business partner. If you are knowledgeable on the provider domain, capabilities and services, you can talk to them and are able to interpret them to the business. Powerful communications – Communication can be a real game changer for any BRM. You must not only communicate well, but also operate with respect and eliminate the blame culture which only impedes success. Understand that building trust takes time. It may be after several successful iterations of demand shaping, exploring, servicing and value harvesting that you begin to cement trust and confidence from both sides. About the Authors: Glenn Remoreras Glenn is a technology and business process expert with international and hands-on management experience in a senior IT management role. He currently heads Corporate IT and Supply Chain Process Evolution at CEMEX in the US. He spearheads IT strategic planning sessions and conducts workshops on business relationship management. He specializes in using technology in enabling business processes to deliver customer and shareholder value with maximum efficiency. He published articles on major publications and personal blog Simple Processes (www.glennremoreras.com) He presented in conferences on topics ranging from IT, business process management and social media. Glenn recently joined Business Relationship Management Institute as Founding Member and Vice-Chairman of the Advisory Committee. BRM Institute (www.brminstitute.org) is a non-profit corporation that serves the Business Relationship Management professional community by providing membership, certification and professional development. Ibrahim Jackson Ibrahim is a seasoned professional and educator of information technology (IT) business relationship management (BRM). He takes pride in bridging technology/digital teams with the consumer brands and business function of a New York based Fortune 500 cosmetics company. His passion for the BRM role is to enhance IT’s image and grow the business by leveraging digital technology to equip, enable and execute on strategic initiatives. Ibrahim is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Business Relationship Management Institute and a founding member. BRM Institute (www.brminstitute.org) is a non-profit corporation that serves the Business Relationship Management professional community by providing membership, certification and professional development.

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