Alliance founded at networking group

Eight members of The Business Network Central & East Lancashire have come together to form the Professional Services Alliance, a new organisation aimed at helping Lancashire professional services businesses share best practice and address common challenges.

The idea was developed by Steve Edge of Optsm, Ben Whitfield and Dave Boardman of Modus RP and Emma Plachciak of Puzzle HR, Jane Gilchrist of Jane Gilchrist Coaching, Laura Weldon of Studio LWD, Kath Lord-Green of Voice It Podcasts and Chris Burn of CSRB, all of whom are members of The Business Network Central & East Lancashire, a membership organisation, bringing together business leaders and decision makers in a structured lunch-based format that aims to help businesses connect and provide introductions for each other.

PSA co-founder Steve Edge said: “The aim of the PSA is to be a thought leader and a value adder for professional service firms through insight, information, inspiration and innovation.

“Our approach is to bring together like-minded and complementary collaborators, who will publish and broadcast, analyse and advise and suggest and solve individual members’ challenges.

“The sector faces significant challenges that include upgrading internal and client facing processes, balancing and upskilling human resources, invigorating client engagement and augmenting and extending legacy technology.

“The PSA will develop a panel of experts from the industry who will contribute their ideas through a series of hosted quarterly round table discussions to address these and other challenges facing the sector as a whole.”

Fellow founder Emma Plachciak said: “One of our founding principles is that a strategy based on collaborative advantage is more effective than one based on competitive advantage. Because by working together on a common purpose we create more and better opportunities.

“Engaging participants within and beyond a single organisation enhances understanding which drives innovation. We see clients’ challenges holistically, whereas too often approaches have delivered quite specific 'point solutions' which may deliver in one area but does not address the wider opportunity.”

With 12 members already signed-up, the PSA is seeking enquiries from anyone in Lancashire-based professional services firms who would like to get involved.

The Business Network Central & East Lancashire director Karen Tems said: “It’s wonderful to see such collaboration happening within the group. We pride ourselves on not just being a place where people come to make new sales contacts, but a hub and forum for new ideas like this, which aim to provide a holistic benefit from working together on common challenges.”

For more information go to LinkedIn page here.