In the first example, one of our Business Units was working with a major IT provider to put in place a finance and billing system. In this instance, there was perhaps a little too much trust. From our side we assumed that they understood the issues facing us and our business perhaps better than they actually did. On their side, I think they trusted a little too much in our expertise and faith in them. Our people thought, 'Well, these guys are the experts', when in fact the experts didn't know enough about our organisation. The result was that for a significant period this Business Unit couldn't send any invoices out. Not something I recommend!
We managed to sort things out eventually and when we sat down to analyse what had happened and why, both sides were able to learn something from it. As a result we are now working very closely with that same company on rolling out management systems across the entire enterprise - and we have been doing it successfully.
So the first, and basic, lesson is to understand what you want and what you are expecting from the partnership and ensure that your partner understands this too.
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