New Information Paradigms Relationship Development
Supporting the development of collaborative business relationships is a long-term 20+ year NIP commitment.
There is a collaborative working thread running through all of NIP's products and services. Our first product, the Information Partner - a networked solution, enabling information professionals to manage unstructured data - was launched in 1989. We embraced Lotus Notes, the first collaborative development environment, throughout the 1990s, and our current web-based offerings - and our involvement in the current British Standard for Collaborative Business Relationships (BS PAS 11000) - are a testament to our continuing commitment in the field of collaborative working.
Economically speaking, effective relationships are essential for engaging, mobilising and managing assets / resources (Williamson), whilst transformative metasystems supporting collaborative teams resolve the knowledge problem (Hayek) and reduce or eliminate transaction costs (Coase).
NIP's Relationship Development solutions are such lifecycle metasystems, and are designed to:
- Identify and make visible the important factors driving the day-to-day functioning of a relationship
- Focus attention on areas where problems can arise and to facilitate their resolution
- Provide access to context-sensitive best-practice and advice
In our working with the Waitrose supermarket group, we developed a systems framework for the identification, measurement and progression of the classes of relationship development issues that now underpins our current offerings:
- PSL's CRAFT Toolkit
- Trust Index - an easy to use on-line tool that benchmarks the levels of trust between individuals and organisations, based on 10 key criteria. It uses a simple traffic light system to identify areas of potential risk, and provides a quick-and-easy monitoring and diagnostic report for organisations, to validate the level of engagement across a collaborative relationship, measure progress in building effective relationships and focus development action plans.
- BS PAS 11000 - a world-leading benchmark for collaborative business relationships, which sets the standard for internal development and competitive market differentiation, the self assessment programme provides an easy to use first step for organisational development. It includes helpful indicators and guidance to assist companies to validate their current profile and understand the development needs before investing in internal initiatives or engaging external support.
- Bespoke Relationship Development programmes, such as:
- aspects of Site-Profile.com (as featured in The Partner magazine, May 2008)
- Personalisation readiness is an assessment and development tool which helps Local Authorities better understand what is required to transform current social care systems into a model that will support the delivery of the personalisation agenda. It allows them to identify current progress, focus on developmental areas, collaborate and share best practice.
- Personal Health Budgets is a collaborative tool for Primary Care Trusts who are engaged with the Department of Health's Personal Health Budgets Pilot programme. It enables them to share information with the Department of Health and colleagues to show progress on an on-going basis, areas of positive emerging practice, feedback, issues and barriers.
