Guest Post: Can a Business Relationship Manager Be Truly Strategic?
By Pete DeLisi
The handbook of strategic expertise defines strategy as a means to achieve a goal. On the surface, therefore, it would appear that a Business Relationship Manager (BRM) can be strategic by aligning the business unit IT strategy with the goals of the business unit. In other words, IT
would serve as a means to help the business unit achieve its business goals. This assumes, of course, that the business unit has clearly specified its goals, i.e., its long-term desired results. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and so, the BRM can be strategic by helping the business unit develop clear business goals.
Another problem with what I have described is that business unit goals are not always aligned with the goals of the corporation. Indeed, business unit goals often describe the results that the business unit wants to achieve, however, they do not link directly to the desired long-term results that the corporation wants to achieve. Whenever this occurs, corporate performance will be suboptimal. Again, the BRM can be strategic by asking the business unit how its business goals contribute to and help the corporation achieve its goals.
Lastly, the BRM can be strategic by working with the rest of the IT organization to develop strategies that directly help the corporation achieve its goals. An example of how this might happen comes from my previous experience managing a group of relationship managers. In this case, each BRM assisted the business unit with its own strategic plan. But in addition, I had the BRMs operate as a corporate staff and assist me with developing a strategic plan to help the corporation achieve its goals. This is a powerful way to use the BRM—not only as a member of the business unit team, but also, as a vital member of the corporate team. The BRM’s perspective in the business unit makes her a valuable contributor to the corporate IT strategy, and in turn, her perspective with the corporate strategy makes her a valuable contributor to the success of the business unit.
—–
This month, our guest contributor is Pete DeLisi. He is the founder and president of Organizational Synergies, a strategy consulting firm in California. Pete has 30 years of strategic planning experience working with over 100 clients. His expertise and insights have been published in Sloan Management Review, Harvard Business Review and Journal of Management Inquiry. In addition to his consulting work, he is the Academic Dean of the Information Technology Leadership Program (ITLP) at Santa Clara University for almost 20 years.
This is all good stuff and it got me wondering about where the remit of the BRM overlaps/compliments/conflicts with that of the Enterprise Architect, Business Architect etc. Saying this in present company I’m probably asking to be pelted with rotten tomatoes – it won’t be the first time, so I’m used to it – but I reckon that you should leave the content (of the strategy) to the Architects and stick to managing the relationship that IT has with the business, part of which could entail to engaging Architects. I’m now going to take cover…
Good point, Mark! Among some of the most crucial relationships the BRM must have on the provider side is that of Enterprise Architect and all the related architecture domains. From my experience, while EA’s can and should be part of business strategy formulation, they are not business strategy experts, so the EA is one other role that the BRM is “orchestrating” and engaging in order to stimulate, surface and shape business strategy and resulting demand. Often, in fact, there is a strategy group of some sort, usually outside of the IT organization – they may well be the ones driving strategy formulation.
To say that the BRM should “stick to managing the relationship that IT has with the business” leaves the potential problem that the BRM is seen merely as an interface, or as an “account manager” rather than a real contributor ensuring that the business is getting high value from their provider assets, resources and investments. If the BRM is helping surface and shape strategy, and helping clarify strategy through business and IT roadmapping, then they will be seen as a valued resource.
Well, no rotten tomatoes yet, so maybe I should push my luck a bit more. If your EA’s can’t cut the mustard, replace them by competent EA’s, but don’t compensate by getting other roles to do their job. Agreed, you don’t want BRM’s to be ‘dumb account managers’ who don’t understand the content but I still maintain that the primary task of BRM’s is to M the BR. Don’t hold back now…
Hello Mark! It is always a pleasure to correspond with you. Thank you very much for never failing to inspire thinking! While Vaughan is enjoying his well-earned vacation, I would like to share with you my own thoughts on the matter. Instead of rushing headfirst into a role naming discussion, however, I invite you to step back and take a holistic look at modern organizations.
As our organizations and many roles and functions within them became increasingly complex, we have made a deliberate choice to slice these roles into easier-to-handle (and easier-to-replace) chunks. At the organizational level, this is how silos were born and, at a role/function level, this is how we ended up with roles that look like a multivitamin composition label: “10% Project Manager + 5% Strategic Business Adviser + 35% IT Executive…” Naturally, very soon we found ourselves grappling with such questions as: “Is ‘30% strategic’ strategic enough or should it be at least 45%?” We now wonder: “Is an Enterprise Architect more strategic than a Business Relationship Manager?” sinking deeper and deeper into the quicksands of inherently incongruous labeling and semantic sliceology.
It does not have to be so complex though, because we know all too well that, whenever we discuss relationships, the only honest answer is: “It depends.” Indeed, a badly implemented BRM role might be of little relevance at all, while a well-positioned Enterprise Architect can be a true expert in the art and practice of Business Relationship Management. Does this mean that we should swap the titles between the two or fire the BRM? Perhaps, a better solution would be to maximize business value by having the EA coach the BRM to become better at his or her job? I can also imagine a case, when both a BRM and an EA are masters of BRM discipline—more power to them!
When I think about the “problem” we are facing here, I imagine a family with many children (“service providers”) who, until recently, for one reason or another, did not show much love to their parents (“the business partners”). Suddenly, the rules changed and it became vitally important to show great affection to the parents. In the frenzy to demonstrate affection, the kids are now arguing about who loves daddy and mommy most and who among the kids should be “authorized” to show their affection. Well, in a healthy loving family, these questions don’t arise.
Now, can you imagine an organization where everyone—anyone from a janitor to a mail room clerk to a C-level executive—does everything to maximize business value of the “service” each of them provides? Who would do the BRMing in such an organization? Well, everyone. Is it not also how an ideal business should function? Thank you very much!
Rotten tomatoes are easier to deal with – you just duck. This deserves a reply.
I’m sure that we have meta-agreement that we agree on so much, and in particular why, what and ‘it depends’ who and how.
The family analogy is good are certainly applies to smaller and adhocratic organizations. My concern is that in larger, traditional organizations you simply have to be clear about roles and responsibilities. I don’t care who does what, just as long as it’s clear. And it helps if the job title or role title reflects the content. That’s really my only beef. Which goes nicely with the tomatoes 😉
Over and out.
I think I might be with Mark on this one, I dont think you need strategy for forming successful relationships, but instead a clear set of values built around those business goals to ensure everyone attached to the relationship, not just the BRM (though everyone is a BRM to an extent I think!) aligns to the the desired vision.
And Luckily I’m fresh out of tomatoes!