10 best practices when partnering for strategic skills
Select the right partnership model. Jason Carolan, CIO of data center solutions provider Flexential, says deciding on the right model between full-services and staff augmentation is essential.
Select the right partnership model. Jason Carolan, CIO of data center solutions provider Flexential, says deciding on the right model between full-services and staff augmentation is essential. Sometimes, you may want a partner who can work in both capacities. “You [may] want their engineers to be as embedded as possible while maintaining the ability to pivot in and out,” he says. “It’s an interesting combination.”
Dig into talent management details. IT leaders who want a sustainable talent supply chain need to assess potential partners’ talent management and development frameworks. “Ensuring they invest in continuous learning and development is key to maintaining a competitive edge and adapting to emerging technologies,” says Harshul Asnani, president of technology and media business for the Americas at Tech Mahindra.
World Insurance’s Corrigan advises asking what skillsets, certifications, and personality types they look for when hiring. “Finding out the average tenure for their team members can also give you a lot of insight into the stability, and quality, of the resources you’ll be dependent on within that third-party,” he says.
Seek cultural affinity and ethical alignment. As technology evolves rapidly, ethical alignment also becomes essential. “The complexity escalates when dealing with advanced skills like AI or data science,” says Asnani. “These fields are not just technically demanding but also require a deep understanding of ethical considerations and industry-specific knowledge. Therefore, choosing partners who not only have the technical expertise but also align with your organization’s values and long-term vision is paramount.”
Take a Goldilocks approach. Some IT leaders may think bigger is better when partnering for skills, but that’s not necessarily the case. A primary consideration is how important your business is to the partner, to ensure they’ll be responsive to your needs. “It is important to choose a third-party that is the right size for your organization, and the amount that you plan to spend with them is significant enough for that third-party to treat you with the level of dedication and importance that your organization needs for the engagement to be successful,” World Insurance’s Corrigan says.
Build trust and transparency. Given the strategic importance of these skills, trust and understanding must be built at both the business and individual level. “Share with your partners where you are trying to go so that they have context and can help you achieve your broader vision,” advises AWS’s Chen. Clear communication, well-defined roles, and shared goals are essential to integrating third-party teams seamlessly, adds Tech Mahindra’s Asnani. Dun & Bradstreet’s Manos recommends regular check-ins where key goals, metrics, and objectives are reviewed.
It’s also critical to bring people into the fold at an individual level. “In most cases, it’s best to treat the third party, especially their team members, as an extension of your team,” Corrigan says.
Establish opportunities for bilateral knowledge transfer. The more your partner knows about your business and IT organization, and the more you understand your partner’s ways of working, the better. Everest Group’s Dwivedi suggests advocating for upskilling initiatives and the establishment of joint academies to build niche client-centric expertise within the partner’s workforce. When possible, it can be beneficial to take advantage of the provider’s learning and development infrastructure to transform internal IT teams as well, she says.
Invest in win-wins. To be sustainable, these partnerships must be mutually beneficial. “[These providers] are under the same type of pressures that an enterprise is in the end,” says Forrester’s Martorelli. “Ultimately, they cannot exert total control over their resources and compel people to stay, but in working with them, customers can try to minimize the impact of attrition and even seek creative ways to retain resources by incenting key third-party resources to stick around.”
Double down on vendor management. To manage these relationships, IT organizations need robust vendor management processes, says West Monroe’s Wright. Here, metrics and governance are especially important — as is addressing issues with either promptly. Even as CIOs have been pursuing more partnerships, there has been some growing dissatisfaction with providers’ talent availability and management, says Dwivedi. Thus, integrating service level agreements (SLAs) pertaining to talent attrition and availability into these agreements and adding those to the partner governance process can be beneficial.
“Sourcing and managing critical partnering arrangements is a capability very few companies have at scale today,” says EY’s Sarafin, who argues that companies increasingly dependent on partners to achieve business outcomes should set up a strategic partnership function to better position themselves to capitalize on skills partnerships as inroads to innovation and growth.
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