NelsonHall recently had a briefing with Axelos, the Capita and Cabinet Office JV that has been set up to commercialize the Government’s Best Practice Methodologies portfolio.

Axelos was incorporated in July 2013, 51% owned by Capita, 49% by the Cabinet Office but governed by a separate board from the parent organizations. The company will be fully operational from January 1, 2014. Axelos is the owner and accreditor of the best practice methodologies.

Its aims are:

• Quality: to raise the quality bar for products and services delivered to clients for the full Best Management Practice portfolio
• Relevance: to improve the relevance of the portfolio to the business, e.g. demonstrable value to managers, CIO and CEO
• Growth: to grow internationally in both public and private sectors
• Innovation: to adopt new ideas and standards in communication, learning and management
• Collaboration: to be a social business with open and transparent communications and to integrate with other frameworks.

Axelos is looking to achieve these objectives by:

• Extensive use of digital channels including enhancing the existing Best Management Practice web site for multiple channels built on top of an enhanced document management core. Use of digital channels will include gamifying the learning tools and provision of information and material for practice tests on-line and as apps for smart devices
• Growing the online communities of practice that contribute to enhancements and development of the portfolio. It has already run product workshops in London, for attendees from the wider international ITSM and PPM communities to discuss subjects such as international tailoring and ITIL improvements
• Develop multi-national offerings for major organizations and industries.

The company is based at Capita’s offices in London. Capita provides Axelos with back office services such as HR and payroll, F&A and IT. Currently, there are 10 employees but Axelos is recruiting.

Axelos is in effect the new custodian of the best practice portfolio. The jewels in its crown include the widely adopted ITIL and PRINC2 methodologies. The JV is the vehicle to free the custodian from public sector constraints on commercialization to grow the revenues from this valuable portfolio. There is potential to grow the best practice products into international standards.

As a new company, Axelos is very privileged to have a strong portfolio of products which also lends itself well to client interactions in communities of practice and social networking, where ideas for enhancements can take shape faster, and be of value immediately after they are formally released. There is much value in collaborative and crowd-sourced innovation that Axelos can potentially tap into. There are already communities of practice based around the existing products, and Axelos will be looking to take them along its journey of evolution.

The challenge for the JV is to develop a new lasting operating model that successfully combines collaborative innovation, and crowdsourcing - benefiting from the wisdom of its communities of practice, while growing the business commercially. There are some good practice examples in the open source software community. Axelos should be looking at all options assessed against the requirement of protecting its IP.