Why are inter-business relationships important to our lives? video transcript
[Lewis Allsopp]
Hello and welcome. This is for a better tomorrow. The University of Derby’s Innovation and Research Podcast with me, Lewis Allsopp. Now each episode I have been chatting to someone in academia about what they have been working on and ultimately it will make our lives better.
Now previously in this series I’ve spoken to researchers answering questions like how mirrors can help us to make solar energy more efficient and how proteins can help combat the onset of Alzheimer’s. But today I want to talk business with you. What really does make the world go round? What supply chains are really important to the day to day running of the world, of our society. And today I want to talk about why inter-business relationships are so very important to our lives.
[Professor Horace]
My names Professor Horace Qile Heand I am currently Professor in Strategy and Performance Management, based at the business school. And I am also the chair of the College Research Committee. So, what has driven me to my current role is my passion, actually, about research. I started my research career 22 years ago as Assistant Lecturer and Research Assistant. So I started to to be more engaged with research and with senior colleagues and senior researchers. So, over time I’ve been nurtured and trained and also self-developed into an increasingly more skilled researcher and to be able to appreciate different research methodologies and to interact with different research subjects. Also with different topic areas within the same domain of research.
[Lewis Allsopp]
I must just ask a question and forgive my ignorance here I suppose. When we speak about universities, what is research? Like, what are we trying to get? We are trying to find things out essentially, aren’t we?
[Professor Horace]
Exactly yes, research essentially, is about exploring and also, to examine the unknowns. So as human beings we are all curious about the unknowns that is driving the development of human society, the nature and also we are curious about our future. And so research from my perspective, is about exploring the unknowns so that we can know better about what we have been like and also what we will be like in the future.
For us as management and social science researchers we are about human activities, organisations and how human and organisations and society, they work together to drive the human being for the future. So of course, there are different disciplines and sub-disciplines within different research areas. However, you know fundamentally, we are trying to contribute to what is known and what is unknown and to make sure we are having better decision for the future, for our organisations and for our businesses and also, at individual levels.
[Lewis Allsopp]
I know you’re more involved here at Derby University in more, centrally, research and innovation as a whole. But I just want to talk about you more personally for a second. Because you have been involved with research of your own, what is something you’re particularly happy with or proud of? Or something you’re working on at the moment?
[Professor Horace]
My main research area is in interfirm relationship managements and there are many different kinds of interfirm relationships.
{Lewis Allsopp]
So this is business to business talking to each other, and how they work and interact with each other.
[Professor Horace]
Exactly, and including you know the interactions, the collaborations, the conflicts and relationship buildings, maintenance, dismissal of relationships between organisations and in particular between firms and companies.
[Lewis Allsopp]
So what sort of things have you worked on with these then? What did you want to find out?
[Professor Horace]
For example, and interfirm relationship is probably the most important glue of all the social activities and business activities in the modern world. And when we are talking about supply chain, for example, and we have important relationships between buyers, suppliers, logistic providers, and so they need seamless relationship connections and collaborations to make sure the flow of materials, the goods and services can be reaching the customers, users and clients in the more smooth way, so that society can run in a more efficient and cost effective way. So, for example, my research is more about, you know, how to make sure this collaboration process happens and more efficiently and effectively happens.
[Lewis Allsopp]
It’s really interesting, actually, because, you know, we often think of the world as being full of humans but realistically it is companies and organisations. Having them joined, linked together and working together is more important than I’d ever realized.
[Professor Horace]
Exactly and traditionally the business society was run based on transactions and so it’s basically exchanged relationships. The collaboration is restricted at a limited level and because of individual interests. Profitability, of individual organisations and companies. But moving to the modern world companies have to collaborate more seamlessly and effectively. So that they can compete more efficiently with other competitors. Because you cannot work alone, by yourself, in the modern world. All the companies have to collaborate with other companies with shared understanding and also shared targets so they can meet the customer requirements more efficiently.
[Lewis Allsopp]
Because things have moved so quickly, you know, in these past 10/20 years or so in technology for one example. And there is no way that one company is able to invent everything we are ever going to need. So, these cross-firm relationships. These collaborations are really, really important. So I suppose it’s something that sometimes you think it doesn’t affect us normal people, who you know, I myself am not involved with any companies or anything like that. But actually it does, because it encourages, and I suppose university research does as well, it encourages innovation, doesn’t it?
[Professor Horace]
Exactly yeah and so nowadays, as you said, no one company is occupying all the resources that is needed for succeeding the market competition. You need resources from the human capital perspective, from the financial perspective, from the technology perspective. And because the society is so specialised and all the businesses, they have all the specialties and competitor advantages that other companies may not possess. So collaborating with each other has become an essential capability and to allow modern businesses to compete more successfully with other companies or other companies maybe from another country. So, corporation, collaboration and event joint innovation and development have become very common nowadays.
[Lewis Allsopp]
And just moving back to the university and universities as a whole and we said there researching in university’s is part of this moving forward of society and innovation. Why is it important that the university’s continue to research things?
[Professor Horace]
I think, it is very important and because you know the businesses are concentrated on immediate performance targets and they need profit, they need smooth transactions, and operations on a daily basis. And so there is lack of opportunity for business to think and to reflect on what they have been dong. And the University is basically, are offering more of a think tact to allow businesses and give opportunity for businesses to think more deeply into what they have been doing correctly and incorrectly so that they can reflect better on future better decision makings. So researchers like us are the think tanks and providing the opportunities/resources for businesses to reflect upon.
[Lewis Allsopp]
Because as we say in universities, as important as money is all around the world, businesses are looking for an immediate pay off from their research. Whereas universities can afford to take a little bit longer and work out these bigger problems, like you say, in this think tank kind of way.
[Professor Horace]
Yeah, I think there are different services a university can provide. For example, university can provide consultancy-based services and to offer immediate solutions. For example, we have what we call a KTP, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and programmes. So those are more about giving human capital from the university to allow business to adopt the new or innovated approaches the university have developed, to benefit the immediate solutions of the businesses.
On the other hand, university is offering, also offering, more of the oriented research. Those findings are having important implications to how businesses can run better. And those are not only beneficial to business immediately, but also more importantly to be adopted by discipline and by other researchers and by other people who need to think what is going on. So I think university is basically providing, a kind of a two-line directions for support for modern businesses and society.
[Lewis Allsopp]
And undoubtedly there is some amazing skills sets here at the University but, also, in our businesses. Why is it important that universities and businesses carry on working together?
[Professor Horace]
I think, at University of Derby we have a particular strategy of applied research. So, we want to generate evidence and then use the evidence to support decision makings of businesses and policy makers. So, our intention is to use knowledge we have gained from fundamental research into applied areas. So, for example, where a business is struggling with covid period and how to manage their supply chain more efficiently. So, the university researchers, and they can use some of the evidence they have gained and also the structure and the mechanisms gained from their research, to help businesses to design their work process and operations process in a better way. So, they can tackle the current challenges in a more efficient way. I am not saying the university can be a problem solver for everything. But at least we are providing some options for businesses to think and adopt so that they mind find a better way to practice. And having adopted a kind of alternative or slightly adapted way of the research that is provided so they can survive their business even more successfully.
[Lewis Allsopp]
Just finally before I let you go, what would you like to see in the future? Here at the University and businesses generally in terms of this collaboration. Have you got, like, an end goal of what you would like to see? What do you think would be beneficial?
[Professor Horace]
I think for researchers we would like to see our research, evidence or our solutions being adopted by businesses. Because university is not for profit and our goal is to make sure that our knowledge can be applied and can be used by business and society. So eventually we want to see more applications and adoptions of our knowledge, you know, by the society.
[Lewis Allsopp]
Listen, it’s been really interesting to chat to you today and let’s hope these collaborations carry on happening. Thank you very much for talking to me.
[Professor Horace]
Thank you very much for inviting me. Thank you.
[Lewis Allsopp]
And this is it for this episode of For a Better Tomorrow! The University of Derby’s Innovation and Research Podcast and in other episodes, if you’ve missed them, we look at research answering questions like why research is so important to the University of Derby and how analysis of events from the past can help inform our current decision making. Be sure to check them out wherever you get your podcasts and follow @Derbyuni. I’ll see you next time. Bye Bye.
Why are inter-business relationships important to our lives? video