Welcome to the third article in our series on the collection of facets and intrinsic value of an Intelligent Supplier – what your supplier could be doing to ensure your relationship has a greater chance of success, and how you…

Commercial trust in strategic supplier relationships concerns the way ‘on-the-ground’ behaviours impact the confidence parties have in one another. Essentially, doing what you say you’ll do, when you say you’ll do it, is a positive starting point for relationship building.…

An opinion piece in The Telegraph titled ‘The consultancy racket can’t survive any more lawsuits’ piqued our interest, partly because of its direct and critical stance, but mostly because of the radical change that is being called for. So, we thought…

Shared services can offer significant benefits – including improved savings, continuity and quality of service, systems and scalability – but only if you can overcome the challenges that will naturally appear when you ask service user parties with different goals,…

If an individual or small group of employees wants better pay, healthcare or changes to other terms of employment, they may highlight this to you, their employer. But how seriously will you take their request (barring the nature of the…

The relationship you create, nurture and commit to with your strategic supplier partner(s) has the potential to drive the right behaviours to generate sustained dedication to innovation. In turn, this often helps you achieve your ultimate business outcomes more quickly…

It was reported that EY has been the focus of a request by the charity, ‘Spotlight on Corruption’ (SoC), to the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) – the government’s procurement body – for EY to be banned from bidding on any…

When times are tough, as they certainly have been over the last year, people tend towards one of two camps – those who are predominantly inward-looking, protecting what’s theirs (their home, their family, their friends), and those who are predominantly…

“After lengthy, fully contested proceedings, the Tribunal concluded that the audit work fell significantly short of the standards expected of an audit firm and its partners.” These are reportedly the words of the Financial Reporting Council’s Executive Counsel Elizabeth Barrett…

Last month we wrote about G4S’s resistance to GardaWorld’s £3bn hostile takeover bid, saying that the board had “… unanimously rejected this offer as it continues to significantly undervalue the company”. However, The Times now informs us that rival US…

Is there an inherent potential for a conflict of interest when the same firm of accountants that audits a company’s accounts also does a considerable amount of consultancy work for them? Their professional standards body states these organisations have a…

Government support for British business has come in many forms throughout the Covid-19 crisis – always welcome and often significantly beneficial. Network Rail is one public owned entity that is doing its bit to help. It is representative of the…

A dispute that erupted in the first half of last year is once again in the news media. Stagecoach, one of a number of public transport providers in the UK and US, took the Department for Transport (DfT) to court…

Over the last few years a number of infrastructure and construction solutions organisations have reportedly been experiencing financial challenges, well before the recent pandemic took hold. In recent news, infrastructure giant Costain Construction has also announced a financial rights issue.…

In these extraordinary times, many of our organisations are struggling: Struggling with losing personnel as increasing numbers of staff are on sick leave or self-isolating as someone they are close to is ill with what’s suspected to be COVID-19. Struggling…

We are living through unprecedented times. Britain is in ‘lockdown’; all but ‘those who cannot work from home’ are being asked to stay at home and the government is paying companies to encourage staff and non-key workers onto furlough leave…

How much do you know about what’s really going on with your strategic supplier relationship? Do you trust your supplier implicitly when they report on progress against your business outcomes, send through requests for payments and inform you of costs?…

If you’re looking into re-aligning your IT project, you may find it hard to figure out where to begin. To help, we’ve charted 6 steps below, which if you follow in the right manner will help you to get your…

Understanding how your IT project got off track will help you to realign your project and relationship; helping to deliver more value. The chances are, both you and your vendor contributed to the issues, but don’t take it to heart…

Outsourcing, managed and commissioned services are prone to relationship problems, with around half failing due to partners not performing to client expectation. You will be well aware that a lack of performance kills trust, but may be less aware of…