What is a Business Relationship Manager?
Business Relationship Management
The goal of the Business Relationship Manager role is achieved when an enabling technology function has common business goals with another organisation unit such as Sales or Supply Chain. they agree long term plans with business colleagues, share the responsibility for delivering cutting edge capabilities that deliver real business value. They spend a significant amount of their time finding new innovative opportunities and focusing on the future direction of the company. What's the BRM role? A Business Relationship Manager (BRM)…
Achieving Balance
Business Relationship Management
Introduction I have been asked quite a few times how much time should a BRM spend doing certain activities. The short answer is: It depends. What is the challenge? So I know I could spend significant portions of my time on say: Fixing broken processes such as issue review and resolution Feeding information, business cases into the governance “machine” Reviewing business cases and negotiating scope Attending discovery meetings with suppliers or Conducting “status update” meetings with business units. In fact,…
Mindset
The one thing that will add Value
I remember once attending a BRMI project meeting when Aleksandr Zhuk mentioned that “BRMs constantly meditate on value”. I liked that phrase a lot simply because it encapsulated very neatly in my mind what Business Relationship Management is all about. We can only go so far in trying to standardise and document what a Business Relationship Manager does. I was recently comparing the differences between a BRM course oriented around ITIL and BRMP. The ITIL oriented course lent heavily on…
Dealing with Disruption
Insurance and Innovation
Introduction As disruptive technology sweeps through the insurance industry and start-ups transform the competitive landscape, I suggest how corporate companies can adapt to change with the help of strategic IT partnerships. Disruption Large organisations typically have an operational focus and change incrementally; however the issue today is that disruptive change is happening at a much faster pace than before, externally to the corporate company and specifically in the area of technology. Artificial intelligence, deep learning and block chain technologies are…
The Importance of Joining the Dots
Marketing and Technology
Introduction In this post I explain that in order for the CIO to help the CMO identify ways of increasing competitive advantage, someone has to “join the dots”. I do this by way of example. I also suggest that a Business Relationship Manager role is the one to “join the dots”. This means that the role has sufficient knowledge about the impact and applicability of technology opportunities. As a consequence the CIO has a rationale to influence sponsors and the…
Shadow IT Part 2
The Illusion of Control
Summary According to a survey of nearly 400 CIO’s by Logicalis in 2015, nearly 1 in 3 CIOs are bypassed ‘often’, ‘very often’ or ‘most of the time.’ (on technology decisions) . This is the second in a two-part post where in the first post I take an example, and give some detail considerations that could guide our immediate response to business partners. The second post looks at the impact on the role of IT in the context of the…
