THAMES WATER
and difficult to deal with . It was a contractual approach and disputes were commonplace that really didn ’ t leave room for developing any form of rapport or solid relationship between the organisation and the suppliers .
“ It was really hurting Thames Water and all parties overheads were growing to deal with the mistrust ”.
It was through Loveday ’ s role in managing that supplier network that he and the organisation identified an opportunity to create a transformation strategy , one that would significantly change the way in which Thames Water operated from top to bottom .
To put it simply , Loveday set out to create a standalone commercial function for Thames Water and in order to do so , the first order of businesses was to quickly settle a number of disputes between the organisation and its supplier network . This , Loveday points out , allowed the organisation to remove pain points in order to focus entirely on proper commercial management of key contracts .
One of the first transformations took place in the waste network , a contract which oversaw the crucial maintenance of all the sewers across London and the Thames Valley area .
“ At the time he joined the programme had around 7,000 customer facing jobs in backlog , a significant level of distrust had built up between the contractors and the Thames Water employees meaning that not enough time was be focused on the problem at hand . Planning and execution was disjointed and too much time was spent on checking whether jobs were valued and paid for correctly rather getting the job done expediently for customers ”.
For Loveday , the task was to realign the organisation ’ s approach to the supply network in order to establish a more mature , integrated contract .
This initially involved much closer and open working with the suppliers , creating a culture where challenges were approached together . Performance management and subsequent actions were carried out jointly through tough weekly sessions . This established a sense of order and soon the operation got back to a managed level . Since then
140 January 2018