24 DEBATE
Zowi Whittaker
Gary Clifton
Hamish Hamilton
Mark Edwards
Sarah Walker
Simon Brierley
Stephen Bolton Continued from page 23
Insurance is often seen as reactive, a piece of paper that goes on the wall and hopefully no one touches it unless they have to. The risk advice we provide is pro-active and forward thinking. It could be continuity planning or business succession.
Sometimes it is about signposting to our eco- system, helping our clients respond to issues through the contacts we have in house.
SW: One of our initiatives is ‘Business Health Matters’ which is a health and wellbeing programme for employees. We collaborate with the likes of UCLan, UK Active and Lancashire Mind.
We use it to pool our resources, using UCLan for its research knowledge as well. Research has been key to its development. It is about reaching out. We have long-standing relationships with a lot of these organisations. It is also quite a sell to say we are associated with the likes of UCLan.
ME: It would be quite arrogant for us to presume we know all the answers to everything. So collaborating with partners makes a massive difference in terms of what our customer gets.
Usually you don’t think about everything so it helps to bring in someone who is an expert in that field and to work together. Giving people the right answer quickly usually generates new business in the long-term, and better relationships.
Trust has to be there from the start. We actually collaborate with direct competitors. I have monthly and quarterly meetings with a couple of competitors and they are a great and
Stephen Cutler productive use of time.
We have an unwritten rule that you don’t speak about certain subjects and it is very much based on having a similar culture and the same values. In the same industry you come across the same problems.
SBr: Trust is important but the organisation internally has to be ready to collaborate. We collaborate with people that, perhaps externally, may be viewed as our competitors.
We are stronger for our members and stronger as an organisation by having great relationships with all those partners.
Organisationally you have to be ready to change your mind, to take on board new ideas, for the outcome not to be the one you were expecting. A collection of opinions has to be better than just one but the organisation has to be prepared to accept that.
On a larger scale, through those collaborations we are generating real opportunities for Lancashire businesses to grow.
That might be collaborating with Suffolk chamber and partnering with an engineering company to allow an east Lancashire company to be part of the supply chain for Sizewell C or collaborating with a local authority in the county to bring low carbon support to a small business.
GC: I use the word exciting in terms of some of the projects we get involved in. Part of that is not knowing where you are going to end up. That voyage of discovery is the bit that makes it really interesting.
ZW: We collaborate with companies locally and nationally. It’s about customer experience. It’s
Vivienne Gregson that mutual level of need.
We recently started collaborating with a business that technically should be our competitor, we work in similar industries. However, working together actually makes both parties stronger.
And we have also collaborated with a company in London. They are in a market that we now don’t need to push to gain entry to, because by partnering with them we are in.
They can offer a fully-rounded service because we are providing the assets to do that. It gets our name out in a market we weren’t operating in. Through collaboration we gain insights that we wouldn’t get if we just stayed in our own box. Working with other people you get to witness new ways and methods of working. It is so beneficial for everyone involved.
SB: I’m obsessed with collaboration. You have to do it for genuine reasons and you have got to have a long term view and a vision for it. It doesn’t happen overnight and it is very much a relationship, a partnership.
Much of our strength as a business now is because of the relationships we have built with competitors.
We’ve found ways we can work together, there are real conversations and transparency and if we can do things together, that is fabulous.
When we are looking at projects one of the first conversations we have internally is to ask who can we work with collaboratively within the county to help support it.
If we can link up with people from day one we’ve got a much stronger offering and that has been
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