Lecture 2000 | Partnering today and tomorrow

John Roberts, CBE, Chief Executive, The Post Office

Wednesday 1 November 2000, London

Last year Peter Bonfield spoke at this event. I am sorry to admit that I'm old enough to go back - just - to the days of the old GPO which comprised both BT and The Post Office. Although I have to say that it was probably less of a partnership then than when Peter and I do business today.

So I've had some experience of partnerships being broken up and having to form new ones, not least as business, and its sourcing, become ever more complex.

But why go in for partnership at all?

Let's start with the basics.

Partnership Sourcing Limited have published three objectives that I think are pretty good reasons for entering into partnering:

to delight customers;
to build competitive advantage; and
to minimise total costs across the organisation's supply chain.

Now, any company would want to do those three things, but why should it be through partnering as opposed to any other method?

Well, once again I want to turn to the Partnership Sourcing Limited definition which says partnership sourcing is:

'A commitment by customers and suppliers, regardless of size, to a long-term relationship based on clear, mutually-agreed objectives to strive for world-class capability and competitiveness.'

For me there are some very important and different concepts in there.

The first is 'a commitment regardless of size';
The second that relationships need time to develop;
Perhaps more importantly, it is 'based on clear, mutually-agreed objectives'.

Lecture 2000 | Partnering today and tomorrow

Drivers and enablers

New factors

Lessons about partnership

The way ahead