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Building and sustaining a successful public-private partnership

Six critical elements for a leading PPP

Overview

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) integrate public sector entities with private sector management strategies and/or financial support. Simply having public and private partners collaborate, however, does not guarantee success. Therefore, Accenture identified six leading elements for building and sustaining successful PPPs.

Background
PPP’s encourage input from diverse stakeholders who leverage leading practices from their respective fields of expertise. By diversifying funding sources, distributing risk and reward effectively, and bringing expertise from all sectors, PPPs allow governments to efficiently expand and improve their services, generating buy-in from all stakeholders.

Analysis

Over the past 20 years in the US alone, PPPs worth over $21B have ended in failure. Many PPPs fail due to the partners:

  • Having over-ambitious goals or being unable to align on the targeted outcomes necessary to achieve the PPP’s vision.

  • Not clearly understanding the risks and success factors involved in the implementation

  • Engaging all the stakeholders and understanding all the important players, actors and competitors within the field of expertise.

  • Not having multiple streams of income or a strong organizational structure.

Recommendations

Accenture identified these six leading elements for building and sustaining successful PPPs:

  1. Set realistic and measureable common goals.
  2. Define a detailed business plan.
  3. Engage all stakeholders and partners and their expertise.
  4. Build strong organizational and governance structures.
  5. Create sustainable and diversified revenue streams.
  6. Have a recognized public figure serve as a spokesperson and advocate.