Scaling your BRM program is not just about adding more people or tools. It's about creating a culture of collaboration, value creation, and strategic alignment across your organization. In this article, you'll learn how to scale your BRM program by following six steps:
Before you can scale your BRM program, you need to understand where you are and where you want to go. You can use a maturity model, such as the BRM Institute's BRM Maturity Model, to evaluate your current level of BRM capability, performance, and impact. This will help you identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and gaps.
Relationship quality metrics might include trust, satisfaction, collaboration, and communication scores with business partners or service providers. Lastly, BRM capability metrics could include skills, competencies, and behaviors demonstrated as a BRM such as strategic thinking or influence.
Assess your current state: Before embarking on scaling your Business Relationship Management (BRM) program, it's essential to take stock of where you currently stand. This involves conducting a comprehensive evaluation of your existing BRM processes, systems, and practices. Assess the effectiveness of your current methods in facilitating collaboration between the business and IT, managing relationships with stakeholders, and driving value delivery. Identify any gaps, inefficiencies, or areas for improvement within your BRM framework. This assessment provides valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your current approach, serving as a foundation for designing a scalable BRM program.
Evaluate your BRM maturity: Use a model like the BRM Institute's BRM Maturity Model to gauge your program's capabilities, performance, and impact. This helps identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and gaps. Analyze your resources: Consider your current team size, skillsets, tools, and budget. Understand your limitations and capacity for growth. Measure current outcomes: Track key metrics like customer satisfaction, renewal rates, and revenue generated through BRM efforts. This establishes a baseline for measuring future progress.
Next, you need to define your vision and goals for your BRM program. What is the purpose and value proposition of your BRM function? What are the desired outcomes and benefits for your business partners and stakeholders? How will you measure and communicate your BRM value? You can use a framework, such as the BRM Institute's Strategic Partnering Approach, to guide your vision and goal setting.
Define your vision and goals: Once you have a clear understanding of your current state, the next step is to establish a compelling vision for your BRM program. Define what success looks like in terms of fostering strong business-IT relationships, enabling strategic alignment, and driving value creation. Articulate specific goals and objectives that align with your organization's broader mission and strategic priorities. Your vision should inspire and guide the development and implementation of scalable BRM practices, providing a clear direction for the future growth and evolution of your program.
Set clear, measurable goals: What do you want to achieve by scaling your BRM program? Align these goals with overall business objectives. Define your target audience: Who will benefit most from a scaled BRM program? Prioritize high-value customers or strategic relationships. Choose your scaling approach: Will you expand geographically, add new customer segments, or offer deeper engagement levels?
Once you have your vision and goals, you need to design your BRM operating model. This includes defining your BRM roles, responsibilities, skills, competencies, and career paths. It also includes determining your BRM governance, processes, methods, tools, and standards. You can use a tool, such as the BRM Institute's BRM Role Canvas, to design your BRM operating model.
Design your BRM operating model: With your vision and goals in place, it's time to design a robust operating model for your BRM program. This involves defining the structure, processes, and governance mechanisms that will govern how BRM operates within your organization. Determine the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders, including BRM practitioners, business leaders, IT professionals, and other relevant parties. Establish clear guidelines for engaging with stakeholders, managing relationships, and making decisions. Design an operating model that is flexible, adaptable, and capable of accommodating future growth and changes in organizational dynamics.
Optimize workflows and processes: Streamline communication, reporting, and data analysis to manage increased volume effectively. Leverage technology: Utilize automation tools and collaboration platforms to boost efficiency and accessibility. Establish clear roles and responsibilities: Define ownership, accountability, and collaboration structures within the BRM team.
After you have your BRM operating model, you need to develop your BRM team and capabilities. This involves recruiting, training, coaching, mentoring, and retaining your BRM talent. It also involves building and enhancing your BRM knowledge, skills, and competencies. You can use a resource, such as the BRM Institute's BRM Body of Knowledge, to develop your BRM team and capabilities.
Develop your BRM team and capabilities: A successful BRM program relies on having a skilled and capable team to drive its implementation and execution. Invest in recruiting, training, and developing talented individuals with the right mix of technical expertise, business acumen, and interpersonal skills. Provide opportunities for continuous learning and development to enhance the capabilities of your BRM team. Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, and accountability within the team, encouraging them to continually improve and adapt to evolving business needs and challenges.
Invest in training and development: Upskill your BRM team on industry best practices, relevant technologies, and effective communication strategies. Consider hiring additional team members: Depending on your growth, you may need to expand your team with specialists or generalists. Foster a culture of collaboration: Encourage knowledge sharing, cross-functional teamwork, and continuous improvement within the BRM team.
When you have your BRM team and capabilities, you need to deploy your BRM program and practices. This means implementing and executing your BRM operating model, aligning and collaborating with your business partners and stakeholders, and delivering and demonstrating your BRM value. You can use a model, such as the BRM Institute's Relationship Maturity Model, to deploy your BRM program and practices.
Deploy your BRM program and practices: With your operating model in place and your team prepared, it's time to roll out your BRM program across the organization. Start with pilot initiatives or small-scale deployments to test your approach and gather feedback. As you gain insights and refine your practices, gradually expand the scope and scale of your BRM program. Implement best practices for stakeholder engagement, communication, and value realization, ensuring alignment with your organization's strategic objectives. Continuously monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of your BRM practices, making adjustments as needed to ensure scalability and sustained success.
Pilot your scaled program: Start with a smaller group of customers or a specific region to test and refine your approach. Communicate effectively: Inform stakeholders about program changes, goals, and expected outcomes. Gather feedback and iterate: Continuously monitor performance, gather stakeholder feedback, and adapt your program based on insights.
Finally, you need to evaluate and improve your BRM program. This requires monitoring and measuring your BRM performance, outcomes, and impact, collecting and analyzing feedback and data, and identifying and implementing improvements and innovations. You can use a method, such as the BRM Institute's Value Management Framework, to evaluate and improve your BRM program.
Track your progress against defined goals: Use data and metrics to measure the impact of your scaled BRM program. Identify areas for improvement: Regularly assess your program's effectiveness and identify opportunities for further optimization. Refine your approach: Continuously adapt and improve your BRM program based on data, feedback, and evolving business needs.