As defined by Wikipedia, “A public–private partnership (PPP) is a government service or private business venture which is funded and operated through a partnership of government and one or more companies.”
We can rephrase it as a long-term, risk-sharing contract between public and private sectors with the purpose of completing a project that will serve the public.
Establishing successful partnerships between the private sector, governments and non-profit organizations seems to be the best way to support international development. Yet these three actors have traditionally been very far from each other in terms of objectives and how they operate. With growing financial pressures and new economies opening up to investment, new types of partnerships must be established –and must learn to cooperate in a productive way.
To understand more about this developing area, Geneva Business News (GBN) met Mr Lionel Bodin, Senior Manager and Switzerland and France lead at Accenture Development Partnerships. Accenture Development Partnerships is part of Accenture, a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 275,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries.
GBN: Can you explain when and why Accenture created Accenture Development Partnerships?
LB: Accenture Development Partnerships was created in 2003, when a group of Accenture employees realised that there was an opportunity to contribute to international development by offering the skills and knowledge which Accenture had developed across multiple sectors.
They were able to pilot and qualify it as a not-for-profit business under the name of Accenture Development Partnerships, operating as part of the for-profit business, Accenture.
Accenture sees many benefits in this initiative. For instance, Accenture Development Partnerships is a differentiating talent management asset: an excellent way to motivate and retain highly talented employees driven by the opportunity of working on complex projects with a high social value. Participating on a project is only open for Accenture top performers and is seen as a professional development opportunity. For the duration of the project, the employee accepts a salary reduction of up to 50%, according to the country of residence and deployment, in order to keep overheads as low as possible. Being a not-for-profit business, this strong focus on cost control has been extremely important to the success of Accenture Development Partnerships because it has allowed the costs of the services offered by them to be maintained at a level which makes their services available to clients in emerging markets.
In 10 years, Accenture Development Partnerships has worked on more than 640 projects and offered more than 1,000 high-performing employees the opportunity to participate on projects, typically ranging in length from 3 to 6 months, in international development programs.
Based on the latest trends, the expectations are for further growth both in terms of numbers of participants and services offered.
GBN: What are the key reasons for having collaboration among private sector, government and not-for-profit organizations?
LB: In a more and more complex world, most actors recognize that they cannot succeed in their missions by working in isolation.
Establishing a partnership is a way of fulfilling their mandate. Connecting with the other players allows them to fill the skills, financial and networking gaps that are usually associated with working as a stand alone entity.
Moreover, it is important to recognize that all the areas of International Development are interconnected and need a systemic approach. For instance, it is not possible to work on education development without tackling the area of childhood health and, as consequence, working with the family environment.
Partnering is a way of having a more systemic response to development issues.
A recent study conducted by Accenture with more than 1000 chief executives of corporations that are members of the UN Global Compact indicates that leaders are conscious that collaboration is instrumental to face today’s most complex problems of development and the way to achieve long-term goals. However, the current economic climate can slow down the development of partnerships with the public or not-for-profit sectors since CEOs need to balance short-term profit objectives with long-term opportunities. PPPs figure more in the second area of interest.
GBN: What is the role of Accenture Development Partnerships in supporting and working on the collaboration?
LB: Accenture Development Partnerships has worked with both profit and not-for-profit clients on hundreds of projects, thus developing a deep understanding of the way they operate. Thanks to its wide-ranging experience in consultancy and a broad network of employees working across multiple countries, Accenture Development Partnerships has provided innovative solutions for building partnerships by acting as a facilitator from the very early stages of the collaboration until its execution.
GBN: What are the main areas of collaboration?
LB: Accenture Development Partnerships can support collaboration through offering a wide spectrum of business services such as technology, strategy, supply chain, finance, talent and organization. Accenture’s for-profit work with the private sector has to be able to develop innovative solutions and technologies, for example, cloud computing. These can then be made available to PPPs.
However, one of the most important pieces of expertise that Accenture Development Partnerships offers is the experience and skills developed in shaping collaborations, which have been honed over the last ten years. This means that partnership skills are starting to be recognised and valued. Accenture Development Partnerships is perceived as a “neutral” partner, able to mitigate risk and make sure that everybody has a voice in the partnership. This is extremely important in setting up a positive collaboration.
GBN: Who are your principal Geneva-based partners?
LB: Accenture Development Partnerships works with many large and small NGOs, foundations as well as companies based in the Leman area. Among them are the International Federation of the Red Cross, GAIN, the Medicines Patent Pool and some UN agencies.
GBN: Can you give me an example of successful collaboration?
LB: One of our flagship projects is the collaboration between Coca-Cola and The Global Fund for the distribution of drugs in Tanzania, now expanding to Ghana, and with plans for further expansion in other countries. The idea was to leverage the supply chain know- how and the wide distribution network of the Coca-Cola Company in some African countries, to distribute medicine in the villages. Accenture Development Partnerships has worked on the project enabling the dialogue among the different players.
GBN: For you, what are the key challenges to building a successful partnership?
LB: This kind of collaboration faces two key challenges. The first one is the time needed to establish a partnership, from identifying the partner to the set up of the project. The second is its sustainability. Moving the pilot beyond the status of a project, to then become a program, requires a lot of energy and people focus that might be difficult to guarantee in a complex context.
GBN: From Accenture Development Partnerships’ experience, what are the golden rules for establishing an effective partnership?
LB: Accenture Development Partnerships’ list of golden rules includes 1) setting realistic and measureable common goals, 2) preparing a detailed business plan, 3) engaging stakeholders, 4) defining transparent organizational and governance structures, 5) identifying sustainable and diversified revenue streams and 6) getting public sector champions.
However, more concretely, there is no magic recipe. A successful collaboration is not just about following a checklist. For example, it is true that having common goals is essential, but that’s not all. It’s also important that each player understands the drivers of their counterparts and establishes empathy.
GBN: How do you see the future of private partnerships? What are the major future risks or constraints if they exist?
LB: I think that in the short-term, we will see more and more private actors becoming involved in partnerships with the public sector. The challenges in international development are complex, so more companies will need to cooperate to achieve objectives that guarantee development. This might happen, for example, to guarantee access to energy. Different private players might have an interest in developing it, but cannot afford to do so as a single entity. They might need to realize that collaboration could be mutually beneficial.
In the long-term, we could see the development of a fourth sector. That is, a hybrid between the private and not-for-profit sectors that could have both profit and non-profit objectives. The key challenges, however, are sustainability and the risks represented by the current economic climate. Business leaders recognise the importance of PPP collaboration, but also admit that it is essential to make it sustainable by getting the partnership up and running at a reasonable price and with reasonable effort.
