Joint Ventures come in many shapes and sizes, and across many sectors. Today we are going to talk about Joint Ventures operating within the Nuclear, Engineering and Energy sectors.
Joint Ventures are often formed when 2 or more partners (often Tier 2) come together to jointly deliver a solution, project or outcome.
A lot of the large nuclear governing bodies often put out pieces of work for tender. On most occasions one company alone cannot deliver the desired outcome so JV’s (joint ventures) are formed.
A good example would be a ‘project to decommission nuclear waste’. There are many stages to that project, and not one partner has a strength in all areas. Often a partner with design/project experience would partner with a construction partner to create the synergy required to achieve success for the client.
Although Joint ventures can be an effective way to combine skill-sets, ideas and resources it can come with its challenges.
X5 of the most common challenges within Joint Ventures
- Multiple partner IT platforms with multiple IT departments – With several partners come several IT platforms, IT strategy and IT teams. Often Joint Ventures must make do with IT available from a partner that isn’t correctly aligned to them.
- Collaboration – Having different teams, data and systems from different partners can make collaboration a challenge.
- Communication – Communication between partners, staff and governing bodies is usually inefficient and frustrating.
- Security – Security often is a mix from all partners and the true line of responsibility isn’t always clear.
- Change – Joint Venture’s in their nature are prone to change – Either deploying teams or scaling back.
- Speed, or lack of – Having to involve so many partners and decision makers can slow progress and innovation.
The problems that can be caused by these challenges
With the common challenges highlighted, comes a list of problems. A lot of joint ventures come across 1 or more of the challenges discussed.
These challenges can compound and cause in-efficiencies across user experience, data access and productivity.
Speed to deploy new teams or sites can be slow, and the constant change without the correct IT in place can stunt growth and innovation.
x5 Tips to help support Joint Ventures
- Leverage Technology – Technology when it comes to planning and running a JV should be at the top of your agenda. It will allow for efficiencies across all areas of your business.
- Dedicated IT for the JV – Having a dedicated IT road map, Infrastructure and environment means it can be designs and built with the JV’s objectives in mind.
- Cloud – Leveraging the cloud will allow JV’s to take advantage of secure ‘elastic’ IT, which means they can rapidly scale up and down teams where needed.
- Work with an IT Partner – We have seen great success when JV’s outsource their IT or align their IT department with an external IT service provider. This means the JV’s requirements will be at the top of the priority list, which isn’t always the case when the IT is controlled by one of the partners.
- Communication Technology – Communication is king! You need to ensure that ALL partners have an easy, seamless methods to communicate. For example Microsoft TEAMS, Slack or a hosted telecoms solution.
The advantages to a joint venture when the correct IT is aligned to objectives
When the correct IT and Technology is aligned with the Joint Ventures objectives (Not just partner objectives) then this can have a massive positive impact on the success of the JV and client results.
Teams, data and system deployment can become more efficient and innovation can be at the forefront of the JV’s activity.
Do you have a challenge within your Joint venture or Nuclear business?
If you want to discuss a challenge within your Joint Venture or any of the areas covered in this blog, please get in touch or tweet @yellowbusteam