IT Business Partner: On Becoming Top of Mind
Business Partner is a common function in a company’s organizational chart. Business Partner serves as the strategic interface with assigned business units. They become the first gate to their respective functional area, liaison of their team to the users.
IT Business Partner in Telkomsel has been established since 2014, started as a small team assigned to Telkomsel major Business Units — such as Sales, Marketing and Planning & Transformation — now we have grown our team significantly under IT Technology Advisory. Six years in this unit, I have been assigned to handle almost all Business Units in Telkomsel. From my years as a Business Partner, one thing I have concluded for myself is that: Business Partner is about becoming the top of mind of our Business Users.
As Business Partner, our job shrinks and stretches as needed. On some projects, we take a more active role. On some other, we laid back and let the other team takes the lead. People come to us for support, for advice and consultation, or even just to rants on a long project timeline or late RFS. Some are within our job, some are not, but above all, we always listen.
Not many can pinpoint what is exactly is the job of an IT Business Partner. Our job varies, our goals blended with those we support. If our Business User comes to us first before anybody else, then we do our job right. Becoming top of mind is the essence of our role.
Becoming top of mind can also be useful for other roles as well, or for your personal career life in general. Here is our take on how to become top of mind— hopefully, it can be useful for you as well.
The key is to always willing to help, whether it is in your job description or not. If it is within your job, then you do it. If not, you point them in the right direction. Give advice and consultation whenever possible. Make your presence felt by the team you support. If people know you are always willing to help, it becomes your personal brand. They will not hesitate to come to you for anything.
Create added value in everything you do. Always seek to leverage the existing. How to give more benefit, how to do things in a more efficient manner. When we train our minds to search for added value, it will show in our daily work. The discussion will have more substance. Position yourself as a useful strategic collaborator to anyone.
Your word is the one to trust. Credibility is a must. Make sure you can always back your word with checked facts and data, strive to always fulfill your commitment, and give early warning whenever you cannot. If they cannot trust you, they will not come to you.
Take perspective on both sides, understand where people are coming from, try to see things from their point of view. Try to find a win-win whenever possible. Not only this will make your assessment and insight more on point, but it also helps your counterpart to be comfortable having you because they know you will always try to understand their objectives.
Plant emotional investment. When you are being helpful to people, people will help you back. Extend your network, spread a positive vibe in your working environment. Aim to be that one person who can get help from the most unhelpful person in the organization. When your network can help you to help even more people, it becomes a cycle of helpfulness and a collaborative working environment.
Originally, Top of Mind is a phrase to describe the highest brand awareness of a product. Whatever you and your team “brand” is, become top of mind in your field of expertise is definitely worth to thrive for.
