What is business partnering?

Business partnering is a strategic approach where business units collaborate to achieve organisational objectives.

Business partnering is referred to as Business Relationship Management in some markets, for example, in North America, and represents a shift from traditional function-specific roles to a broader, more integrated approach. For those new to business partnering, it’s about adopting a mindset that seeks to remove organisational silos and, instead, connect these barricaded teams through relationship-building. People then work together, with a shared purpose, to drive value and deliver successful outcomes. Stated differently, business partnering return’s purpose and meaning to the workplace.

In practice, business partners / business relationship managers share insights, data, and expertise to drive better decision-making, improve performance, and ensure that all parts of the business work in tandem towards the overall strategy.

Business partnering emphasizes a continuous, strategic collaboration between departments or functions. For example, consider the partnership between the Human Resources (HR) department and a department or function within an organisation. In short, HR is responsible for the employee lifecycle such as hiring, onboarding, and training, but like any function, can become siloed from the rest of the organization. This can take many forms depending on the team or department but for HR, this can appear as:

• Lack of diversity in the organization.
• Imbalance of senior leadership wants and employee needs.
• Limited budgeting for training/ professional development.
• Slow onboarding and employee integration.

Having a siloed HR department can prove particularly consequential to the organisation and occurs more often than you might think. However, with business partnering steps in place, collaboration is not only easier but a cultural expectation within the organisation. Using our example, this would mean that:

• HR works closely with different departments to understand their needs for talent, skills, and organisational development, recruiting accordingly.
•  HR provides insights into workforce planning, training, and development opportunities; establishes a framework for hiring within and career growth opportunities.
• The departments share their goals, challenges, and future plans with HR, helping them tailor HR strategies to better support business needs.

Working together, HR is better equipped to identify gaps in skills, develop recruitment strategies, and implement training programs that align with the company's long-term objectives. This collaboration ensures that the business units have the right talent at the right time to achieve their goals and meet business objectives.

While recruiting a new member of staff could be viewed as a task or a project, business partnering goes beyond the scope of project management by emphasising a continuous, strategic collaboration between departments or functions. At a high level, benefits of business partnering include:

• Enhanced collaboration and communication
  • For those who work primarily as business partners, these individuals encourage cross-functional teamwork and communication and help bridge the tactical side of an organisation with the overall purpose or strategy.
• Increased business agility and responsiveness
  • With a stronger network of relationships, this connectivity means that an organisation can respond more quickly to internal and external changes or challenges because of its enhanced communications and collaborative culture.
• Improved compliance and quality control
  •  Establishing strong relationships means utilizing empathy to understand the end user’s experience; this is often referred to as an “outside-in” approach to business strategy where the focus is on the customer’s perspective.
• Faster innovation and process improvement
  • Business partnering encourages fresh perspectives and ideas, which directly contributes to enhanced innovation and process improvement.

Establishing business relationship management within an organisation requires a strategic and collaborative approach. You need the following:

• A shared purpose that resonates across the whole organisation
• A deep understanding of business unit/department needs
• To secure the commitment of senior leadership

If you want to set-up business partnering in your organisation, you will need to build buy-in, demonstratable value and gradually integrate the business relationship management model into the organisation’s operations.

Business partnering is not a science but an art. This means that there is no single approach that will work for every organisation. Below is a high-level outline that has worked for some organisations. 

Get more detailed understanding of Business Relationship Management

• Assess the Current Environment: Start by understanding the company’s structure, goals, and challenges. Identify areas where more collaborative work could add significant value.
• Understand Strategic Objectives: You will want to ensure that the business partnering initiatives align with the company’s strategic goals, but to do that you will first need to have a robust understanding of what those strategic goals include.

• Engage Senior Leaders: Identify and engage with senior leaders who can sponsor or support the initiative; their support can give credibility and also provide resources. To earn their support, you will need to develop trust as well as demonstrate a deeper understanding of strategic objectives and how an implementation of business partnering will aid in those objectives.
• Build a Coalition: Identify potential allies across different departments. These could be department heads or influential team members who understand the value of collaboration.

Articulate the Value Proposition: Clearly define what business relationship management and how it will benefit the organisation. Highlight the potential improvements in decision-making, efficiency, and overall business performance.

Create a Roadmap: Develop a step-by-step plan for implementation. This should include timelines, key milestones, and the resources needed.

Select a Department / Function: Choose one or two departments where business partnering can have a clear, positive impact. Finance, HR, and IT are common starting points.

Define Roles and Responsibilities: To begin, having a specific role dedicated to business partnering can help establish a larger capability across the organisation. This will require you to clarify what the business relationship manager role will be and how it differs from traditional roles. Define the responsibilities of the business partner and the department they’re partnering with.

Set Measurable Goals: Establish clear, measurable goals for the pilot program. These should be tied to specific business outcomes, for example cost savings, improved employee engagement, or faster project delivery.

Communicate Effectively: Regularly communicate the vision, progress, and successes of the initiative. There are many ways of doing this, you could use meetings, reports, and informal check-ins to keep everyone informed and engaged.

Establish Trust: Continuously work to ensure that business partners are seen as trusted advisors rather than just another layer of management. They should be approachable, knowledgeable, and focused on adding value to every interaction.

• Track Performance: Regularly measure the impact of business partnering against the goals you set for the pilot program. Use KPIs to assess effectiveness and identify areas for improvement.
• Gather Feedback: Collect feedback from all parties involved and use this information to refine the approach and address any concerns.

Once the pilot program has demonstrated success, the business relationship management model can be gradually rolled out to other departments. You should refer to any lessons learned during the pilot to help refine the model. Also bear in mind that different departments will have different needs and face different challenges to the pilot department, so you may need to tailor the approach.

It would not be realistic to expect the whole organisation to support the initiative on day one. It takes time to build relationships, implement processes and to see results.

The following roles will be involved in the successful implementation of business partnering:

• Business Partner – The business partner is the ‘connector’ and brings different departments together to achieve a common goal. In some regions and organisations, Business Partners are called Business Relationship Managers or Relationship Managers. This article on the role of a Business Relationship Manager, goes into further details.
• Leadership – Senior leaders are critical in ensuring adoption. The business partner needs to ensure their work aligns with the priorities of senior leadership in order to gain support.
• Head of department – Heads of department, or influential team members, who understand the value of cross-functional relationships will help establish new behaviours and the formation of a collaborative culture.
• Operational staff –These are the staff members with key insights into the organization, especially that which works well and that which is in need of significant improvement..

Implementing business partnering can be challenging. Some obstacles you may face are:

• Trust – trusting relationships must be built to allow the business partner(s) to succeed. Individuals must be open, honest and transparent for the relationship to work.
• Role definition – departments must understand the role and see the value business partners can bring.
• Culture – culture changes cannot be forced, but a business relationship manager’s role will bring about change. Building strong relationships and having strong communication skills will help towards overcoming resistance to change.
• Resources – limited resources (time, staff, budget, data, etc.) can prevent the business partner from performing their role and delivering results.

An IT business partner is a common role as they work with business units to ensure that IT initiatives, such as introducing new technologies, support and enhance operations. An example of business partnering in IT is detailed in the following case study from Loughborough University in the UK.

HR business partners can help with people solutions, talent development, learning initiatives and organisation development which will lead to balanced teams and a collaborative culture.

A Finance business partner collaborates with departments to align financial planning and analysis with the organisational strategy. This can include budgeting, forecasting, financial reporting, and advising on investment decisions.

The marketing business partner works with different departments to ensure that marketing strategies align with the company’s goals. This may involve coordinating campaigns, advising on market trends, and ensuring consistent brand messaging which can help organizations promote a shared purpose and mission.

Business partnering can deliver many benefits to organisations, no matter their size or industry, by promoting cross-functional collaboration that continuously drives value.

An effective business partner has a deep understanding of the business model: how it operates, how it creates value, its strategic drivers and its purpose. They can help the organisation realise its potential by creating impact from the inside out.