Enterprise Relationship Management: A Paradigm for Alliance Success

Citation

Derek H.T. Walker (2016), "Enterprise Relationship Management: A Paradigm for Alliance Success", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 234-236. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-08-2015-0078

Alliancing and relationship based delivery of projects, programs and services, etc. is increasingly becoming an important element of modern PM and programme management. The stock of books on these topics has been increasing of late. When I wrote my first book in this area there were few texts to refer to for that book (Walker and Hampson, 2003) and by the time I wrote my second book (Walker and Rowlinson, 2008). Books by Lendrum (1998/2003), Oum et al. (2000) and Smyth and Pryke (2008) are relevant and now at the time of my third book on this area (Walker and Lloyd-Walker, 2015) we are seeing this large gap in literature on collaborative forms of project organising shrink somewhat more with books such as the one being reviewed here and that is good to see.

This book takes an enterprise perspective and appears to build upon the authors’ previous book (Gibbs and Humphries, 2009). Both authors have a strong supply chain management (SCM) and marketing background and so they bring a wealth of practice and theory to the book. Many of the Gower books are easy to read and aimed at pracademics who value practice-based books with decent links back to theory and studies with academic rigour. This book, for example, sent me scurrying off downloading a PhD thesis from Delft Technical University when I spotted an interesting Table on page 61 in the book that draws upon a thesis by Perié (2008) that was related to an alliance between KLM and Schipol Airport that built upon earlier PhD work by Gibbs. I often look at the references section first when deciding to read (or review) a book. The references section usually indicates that the book either falls into the category of airport shop long-flight read by a “management guru” or something more promising and substantial that has a bonus of good references to follow up on. I decided to review this book according to that rationale.

The introduction explains that this book builds on the authors’ earlier extensive research and writing with a focus on enterprise relationship management (ERM) which is concerned with strategic value creation and generation across the enterprise as a whole. In a way this is like project work where different parties come together to deliver projects or programmes of projects. ERM fits well with vanguard research into PM with its value creation and relationship focus.

Chapter 1 discusses the extended organisation. It takes a resource-based view citing appropriate sources and moves this idea on to the role of alliancing and partnering as sources of strategic advantage. Their figure 1.1 on page 11 sums this up very neatly. They then go into a discussion of outsourcing, transaction cost economics and the make or buy decision. They have a very clear table 1.1 on page 16 that provides a clear framework of value creation based on product, distribution and service support factors. This helps frame the book. Personally, I felt that they take the necessity for outsourcing for granted and the make- or buy decision is a little more complex than they present. However, their background is SCM and marketing so that is their “world” view anchor and we all have our core discipline area we like to reach back to. In their conclusions they present strategic trends in table 1.2 based on a three by three matrix showing options based on (x-axis) technology, globalisation and business model against (y-axis) change, innovate, collaborate and that makes a tidy start to the book to take as their point of departure.

Chapter 2 outlines the complex challenges of collaboration management. There is some groundwork discussion about defender, prospector and attacker strategies that is based on the work of Miles and Snow (2003) amongst others and discussion of the complexity in delivering products and services and how collaborative networks can help achieve competitive advantage as well as more effective help assemble the necessary skills and resources to effectively and efficiently deliver value.

Chapter 3 discusses the right culture for collaboration. This chapter is grounded in theory about national culture from Hofstede and well as the GLOBE study and it draws in a good critical review of corporate culture influence and something about personal values from Handy. Not really recent citations but I felt well-grounded for the book’s scope.

Chapter 4 provides more detail discussion on operational implications of culture. This draws on more from the GLOBE study, emotional intelligence theory, regional culture influence on leadership styles, partnering and the table 4.2 on elements of partnering culture from the thesis by Perié (2008).

Chapter 5 is about drivers to success. Apart from their identified three big issues of globalisation, information technology and innovation they go into some detail about the foundations of collaboration. They discuss trust, commitment and dealing with conflicting perspectives on partner objectives. The sections on communication, collaboration and value creation with reference to underpinning needs and structures for alliancing to be realised is outlined. Any readers that want to go deeper into this would need to probably get hold of Gibbs’ 2006 PhD dissertation (I could not find it online) or the thesis by Perié (2008) which is online from Delft TU. The chapter then goes into measuring partnering performance and what they call relationship spiral performance measures. These have some practical application that makes the chapter worthwhile.

Chapter 6 goes into more depth about collaborative appraisal. The chapter is well structured and looks like it is based on their consulting activities so it is quite practical. It indicates various traffic-lights tools and templates, discusses wider implications and views such as taking a consortium perspective. I am sure that readers could use this chapter to design their own appraisal system from reading this chapter but as with all these systems there is a lot of tacit knowledge that the authors have that is difficult to make explicit in a book like this.

Chapter 7 is entitled “From cost to value creation in outsourcing and facilities management relationships”. There is a sensible discussion, including cited examples and useful quotes, about the pitfalls of organisations outsourcing too deeply and as a consequence lose their core competitive advantage. There is a section on broken cycles of value generation that makes sense.

Chapter 8 argues for collaboration management being a formal discipline with some discussion of BS 11000 and its relevance to the book’s theme. A template for an ERM plan is presented as well explaining the role of “relationship manager” and what may be expected of that role. The chapter reinforces the need for active relationship management rather than passive rules and protocols that can soon become dry and disengaging.

Chapter 9 discusses practical collaboration and follows through the phases of developing and maintaining collaboration. It is a little bit of a join-the-dots chapter but it has convincing quotes and is obviously based on the author’s experience.

Chapter 10 takes a strategic perspective and is based on the authors’ developed tools and templates. Typologies are handy devices, they help us visualise complex concepts and constructs. Their typology comprises eight partnering types: evangelist; stable pragmatist; rebellious teenagers; evolving pessimists; captive sharks; cherry pickers; no can dos; and deserters. I leave the reader to find out more from the book. It is a handy devise to gauge and understand the lifecycle of relationship formation and development as well as why some follow one path or another during the lifecycle. It also helps to understand what various participant’s motivations and expectations may be and how this affects the development of the relationship.

The last chapter, Chapter 11, discusses ERM as the core competence of the future. Taking a networked and global perspective it pursues the logic of smart-small but highly networked with excellence in relationship management as being the defining business model for most organisations. It is a compelling argument. If we look at projects from the perspective a network of partners that all have an interest in the successful delivery of the project, then this book makes a real contribution.

In general I would say that this book makes a very sound reference book for general PM students, practitioners and academics. I chose to read this from a PM perspective and the book was interesting for me at a PM level, collaboration and relationship based delivery level. I felt that the time invested in reading the book was worthwhile, even though from my perspective I found that there was not a lot new for me, however, I could see this book being a real eye opener for many readers.