The Rhythm of Business

Relationship Business Assessment

A "Reality Check" for Your Company
The Rhythm of Business seeks relationships with business people and their organizations that are making the shift to become relationship focused. Completing our "Relationship Business Reality Check" takes approximately 15 minutes and provides you with an immediate view of your company's relationship business readiness. If you submit your completed responses to us we will provide you with our written assessment of where you need to focus your transformation activities.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Information secured from this questionnaire will be treated as confidential and will not be presented in any way that would identify any individual or organization to anyone within or outside your organization.

It is important that you answer all the questions. Even if you are not certain about the exact answer to a question, choose the option that comes closest to reflecting your opinion. Complete responses enable us to provide you with a more detailed assessment.

Relationship Business Assessment

Please check the number that best reflects the extent to which your organization exhibits the key attributes of a relationship-focused company:

A relationship-focused company is one that is customer-centric in that it recognizes that the balance of power has shifted to the customer. As a result, a company needs to look at all its stakeholders as if they were customers and from their perspective, so that it can identify what is of value to them.
1. Product-Centric vs. Customer-Centric
Business Centric		To Some Extent		Relationship Focused
1	2	3	4	5
What factors influenced your rating choice?

Probably, the most difficult mindset for businesspeople to adopt is win-win - one in which all parties to a transaction come away having received something they value. What is critical to this mindset is understanding that the recipient is the only one who can really value what he or she receives. And while on any given interaction not all parties may receive something of value, the give and get of the relationship must balance out if the relationship is to continue. One-way streets don't work.
2. Win-Lose vs. Win-Win
Business Centric		To Some Extent		Relationship Focused
1	2	3	4	5
What factors influenced your rating choice?

Whether in reference to one's ability to get the right information at the right time or have unfettered access to business processes, communication and information technologies empower all stakeholders, so real time access to the critical decision influencing information has become a condition for doing business with a company.
3. Controlling Information and Access vs. Transparency
Business Centric		To Some Extent		Relationship Focused
1	2	3	4	5
4. Periodic vs. Real Time
Business Centric		To Some Extent		Relationship Focused
1	2	3	4	5
What factors influenced your rating choice?

Let's face it: trust is the major factor impacting one's ability to build relationships. Given an almost daily barrage of news stories about businesspeople or companies betraying the trust placed in them, you must demonstrate, on a consistent basis, that you do what you say you will do.
5. Brand vs. Reputation
Business Centric		To Some Extent		Relationship Focused
1	2	3	4	5
6. Over Promise/Under Deliver vs. Keep Your Word
Business Centric		To Some Extent		Relationship Focused
1	2	3	4	5
What factors influenced your rating choice?

In the new customer-centric era of business, customers expect to collaborate with the companies they do business with. As part of building these collaborative relationships, customers don't want to be simply on the receiving end of broadcast marketing messages. Rather, customers want to be involved in on-going conversations with their business partners, building relationships one conversation at a time.
7. Mass/Broadcast Communications vs. Conversations
Business Centric		To Some Extent		Relationship Focused
1	2	3	4	5
What factors influenced your rating choice?

Much has been written about the changing structure of business organizations. The developing paradigm is one of a networked grouping of the competencies needed to satisfy customers. So, whether they are called business webs, value nets or, our favorite, collaborative communities, companies today are looking more and more like ever-changing networks of strategic alliances.
8. Pyramid/Silo Structures vs. Network of Alliances
Business Centric		To Some Extent		Relationship Focused
1	2	3	4	5
9. Transactional Relationships vs. Collaborative Relationships
Business Centric		To Some Extent		Relationship Focused
1	2	3	4	5
What factors influenced your rating choice?

At the most basic level, companies increasingly understand and appreciate the benefits to be realized as a result of building collaborative relationships. And integral to the ability to build collaborative relationships is the capability of measuring and managing the value in non-cash relationship-based currencies.
10. Only Financial Assets Measured And Managed vs. Relationship-Based Sources of Value Also Measured
Business Centric		To Some Extent		Relationship Focused
1	2	3	4	5
What factors influenced your rating choice?

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"Companies are looking for ways to improve the effectiveness of their top talent: workers who interact with others and draw on experience and judgment to solve the deepest business problems. What makes these workers valuable is their ability to work collaboratively, to leverage �relationship capital,� and to improvise and improve new solutions within an environment that fosters trust and constant learning."
- The McKinsey Quarterly, McKinsey & Company