Our Blog
News, Insights, editorial and comments on hot topics relating to Strategic Partnerships
Earning The Right
To become a Strategic IT Partner
We at Baxter Thompson Associates have come to the conclusion that whilst IT organisations are effective at being a “Service partner”, they may not necessarily be effective. This conclusion is reached through assessing two different surveys sampling the same group of people – IT Business Partners (ITBP) Whilst Business Stakeholders report that they want strategic technology insight and indeed many ITBPs we have spoken to want to position themselves more as Strategic IT Partners, in order to earn that right…
Value Management
The Top Challenges Facing IT Business Partners today
At the BRM Forum in London delegates gained some practical takeaways after participating in the BRM Forum. This is the last in a four part mini-series. BRM Forum: The Panel Article written by James O'Driscoll, Gilbert Scott Associates. On Friday 9th of June the 5th BRM forum took place in central London. The session was a mix of debate, presentation and business simulation via Grab@Pizza. In terms of the debate this was a panel discussion hosted by James O'Driscoll on…
Executive Support
The Top Challenges Facing IT Business Partners today
At the BRM Forum in London delegates gained some practical takeaways after participating in the BRM Forum. This is the third in a four part mini-series. BRM Forum: The Panel Article written by James O'Driscoll, Gilbert Scott Associates. On Friday 9th of June the 5th BRM forum took place in central London. The session was a mix of debate, presentation and business simulation via Grab@Pizza. In terms of the debate this was a panel discussion hosted by James O'Driscoll on…
Role Conflict
The Top Challenges Facing IT Business Partners today
At the BRM Forum in London delegates gained some practical takeaways after participating in the BRM Forum. This is the second in a four part mini series. BRM Forum: The Panel Article written by James O'Driscoll, Gilbert Scott Associates. On Friday 9th of June the 5th BRM forum took place in central London. The session was a mix of debate, presentation and business simulation via Grab@Pizza. In terms of the debate this was a panel discussion hosted by James O'Driscoll…
Shadow IT
The Top Challenges Facing IT Business Partners today
At the BRM Forum in London delegates gained some practical takeaways after participating in the BRM Forum. This is the first in a four part mini series. BRM Forum: The Panel Article written by James O'Driscoll, Gilbert Scott Associates. On Friday 9th of June the 5th BRM forum took place in central London. The session was a mix of debate, presentation and business simulation via Grab@Pizza. In terms of the debate this was a panel discussion hosted by James O'Driscoll…
Continuous Service Improvement
How IT Business Partners help
At the Baxter & Thompson associates BRM Forum in London delegates gained some practical takeaways after participating in the Grab@Pizza Business simulation game. Grab@Pizza! Participants understanding the roles in the game. The simulation game is an experiential learning instrument that can be used as a stand-alone team building exercise. The simulation can also be used in organizations to create buy-in for IT Business Partnering, compliment training and assess current capabilities and agree first steps for moving forward. In the simulation…
IT as a Business Partner
The Challenges and Overcoming Them
Baxter Thompson Associates (BTA) in conjunction with the British Computer Society Elite Forum (BCS) held a debate on the 21st September 2016 “IT as a Business Partner. Jacqui Hogan, Bill Limond and Jon Baxter and 20 executives looked at some of the challenges facing the Chief Information Officer (CIO) in becoming a Partner with the rest of the organisation and some of the solutions that could help the CIO overcome those challenges. BTA has produced a report on the outcome…
Measuring Business Maturity
Results from the 2016 IT Business Partner Survey
In 2016, we carried out a survey of UK based IT Business Partnering professionals (or Business Relationship Management professionals) to assess the state of IT business partnering. The results show a snapshot of the companies in which IT business partner professionals work, and go some way to a better understanding of how IT business partnering is being used to develop organisations effectively or otherwise. The survey measures the degree to which IT Business Partnering is embedded in the culture and…
Corporate Politics in IT Business Partnering
Putting the Relationship into Business Relationship Management
Think of the term ‘Corporate politics’ and it may be that negativity dominates your thoughts. People trying to score points, secrecy and subterfuge, and departments competing against each other may be some of the examples you would quote. Work in a large organisation as an IT Business Partner and you’ll probably feel you could write a book on these issues alone! By Robina Chatham Corporate politics is about ways of handling difference, which can also be achieved through positive means…
