Portfolio value is an inside job

Many Jinfo clients are deep into budgeting, as they plan for the end of the calendar year. They tell us they anticipate the "perfect storm":

• 2022 will be a challenging financial environment
• Flexible licensing agreements to accommodate short-term changes in working patterns are crystallising into long-term requirements
• Vendors that "shared their clients' pain" during the crisis are now looking to increase their revenues.

Essential to navigating this storm is your relationship with your internal stakeholders. Do they understand the commercial value and impact of the content portfolio on their ability to achieve their business goals?

Our Consulting on Content Portfolio projects may start from questions about negotiating position, usage reporting or closer understanding of user requirements. But they inevitably involve creating a clear information investment philosophy that resonates with senior-level stakeholders.

A client reflected this back to us in a wrap-up call for a recently completed project. Initially, the primary goal of the project was to reset the vendor relationship around realised value. She told us:

"I can now sit down with my stakeholders and articulate how [licensed information] affects different workflows and the value they produce. That's something that has really resonated with them and has led to a different type of conversation – a more valuable and targeted conversation."

If you'd like to reshape those internal conversations, talk with us about Consulting on Content Portfolio and explore what your own transformation can look like.

Stephen Phillips
Senior Analyst

Make the most of an hour

A recent client workshop for a Consulting on Centre of Excellence project covered a number of practical insights that resonated with my years of experience managing information research strategy and operations for a global R&D organisation:

• Expertise tends to grow around what the need is
• You have to know what your services are in order to sell them
• As a busy team leader, it is essential that you give yourself the mental space to be in a single role at any given time – e.g., when you are managing the service, rather than delivering the service.

We were working with this client on the Pillars of Service activity (step two in the process outlined in our Focus on Centre of Excellence).

In about an hour, they absorbed these important points on the whys and hows of strategy.

The same hour gave them the time they needed to create a logical structure for high-value, customer-oriented services.

I know from my own experience how hard it is to make time for strategy and planning. The Focus on Centre of Excellence helps you make the most of whatever time you have, by giving you proven activities for practical benefit. Consulting on Centre of Excellence carves out the time to make it happen.

Susan Gleckner
Senior Analyst

Build from a solid foundation of value

"I never before fully appreciated the role the information service plays in R&D productivity and innovation. This isn't something that benefits our department; this is something that benefits the whole of R&D."

A client said these words to me at the conclusion of a Consulting on Value Chain project.

She got more than a deliverable – she got a critical shift in thinking. And, if she keeps her analysis up to date, her department's services will naturally evolve in tandem with changes in R&D strategy itself.

This isn't unique to information teams that support R&D – replace it with your priority customers in business development, account engagement, strategy, etc. – and the statement is still true.

Value Chain analysis benefits the customer by connecting information with business goals.

Here's my invitation to you: Tell me about one challenge you are currently trying to resolve for your information service. In a short conversation, we can explore how Value Chain analysis can create a more effective framework to enable you to address it – and then to use that framework whatever new challenges come your way.

Complete the enquiry form today, or contact me at robin.neidorf@jinfo.com to start the conversation.

Robin Neidorf
Director of Research