This document discusses the importance of personal relationships in effective collaboration. It provides two case studies of companies that expanded into new markets, with one company failing and the other succeeding due to differences in personal relationships. Specifically, it argues that personal relationships foster trust and enable collaboration, as evidenced by examples of faster disaster recovery response from vendors with long-term relationships compared to others without close relationships.

1. The importance of Personal Relationships in Effective Collaboration John Keleher IT Manager, Crittall Windows Ltd

2. Agenda Collaboration Case Studies North America v UK Construction Market Company 1 Company 2 Personal Relationships

3. col·lab·o·rate (kə-lāb'ə-rāt') working with enemy — the betrayal of others by working with an enemy, especially an occupying force working together — the act of working together with one or more people in order to achieve something

4. Collaboration Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. - Henry Ford

5. Case Studies Not the whole story Names withheld to protect the innocent Interesting comparison of the fate of 2 successful companies looking to expand into new markets

6. UK Construction Market Source: thepeoplebrand.com

7. North American Construction Market Source: thepeoplebrand.com

8. Company 1 80 years’ successful trading Focussed on UK residential market No 2 in UK Entered UK Commercial Market

9. Company 2 160 years’ successful trading Focussed on UK Commercial Market No 1 in UK Re-entered North American Market

10. Outcome Company 1 February 2010 entered administration Company 2 April 2010 won Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Markets

11. Why are people important?

13. Source: PIECC Project

14. Source: PIECC Project

15. Collaborative IT Project

16. Collaborative IT Project 4 developers based in Brisbane Fort Lauderdale Braintree Aberdeen or anywhere in the world Web based Collaborative Tools Most productive period? 1 week all 4 spent together working face to face

17. Personal Relationships 2002 fire in comms room All servers condemned No formal disaster recovery agreement Back up and running in 4 days Email same day CAD next day Commercial systems 4 days Different responses from different vendors

18. Responses Radan (CAD) Engineer finished his day’s appointment and arrived Braintree 9 pm. Worked till midnight then again in morning. Centric (Email) Responded immediately (Sunday), visited site & then setup virtual Exchange Server Data General (Main Unix Server) Engineer next morning, spent 3 days locating and setting up a loan server HP Rang us late next day to say our support contract didn’t cover fires, and we would have to place a purchase order before they would send an engineer.

19. Reasons for Great Responses Radan 15 year relationship, the engineer had worked on original installation Centric New business but – MBO from our web developers 5 year relationship with technical team Data General 20 year relationship the engineer had worked on original installation

20. Conclusion Companies don’t collaborate people collaborate Technology is a great enabler, but you have to want to collaborate for it to be successful Long term partnerships enable the development of trust and foster great working relationships