Recently I was invited to facilitate a roundtable/workshop at the June 7, 2017 ASAP Tech Partner Forum in Santa Clara, Calif., centered on digital transformation. We heard from many experts and pioneers in the technology space about the challenges and changes they were navigating. It was like drinking from a firehose. The workshop on “Managing [...]
How do you engage when your partner is strategic to you – but you are not strategic to them. My partner thinks of me as a supplier, or a channel, or 'fill-in-the-blank.' How do I become a strategic partner? This is a common refrain from startups and small companies wanting a relationship with a big [...]
Partnering Strategies to Accelerate Growth in the Internet of Things For some time we’ve been hearing that Internet of Things is coming. Well it’s here! There are many examples that we probably don’t think much about. Beyond our personal devices: smart phones, watches, Fitbits and all, there are a growing number of consumer appliances and [...]
Partnering Return on Investment is often quite attractive since the investment in a partnered initiative is shared. In other words half of the resources or costs are on your partner’s balance sheet. There are other organizational advantages as well which become apparent when a build/buy/partner analysis is conducted. These advantages are often related to external [...]
Creating Business Value for Customers Creating a competitive edge is crucial for all businesses and can be achieved through alliances. Alliances can also be a defensive measure in countering a competitive shortfall such as a gap in a company’s product line. In our research we found that creating competitive advantage was a major reason for [...]
The definition for an alliance is when two (or more) organizations combine their resources to create new value that could not be (easily) achieved by either party alone. Innovation is often described as the process of combining disparate ideas to create something new and in today’s business climate often requires a collaborative approach. It is [...]
Market Impact embraces those strategies that are aimed at growing the businesses of the allied partners. It includes strategies such as entering new markets, gaining a market share position, and generally expanding the capability to gain new customers. The top five selections of our best practices survey respondents in this category are depicted in the chart below: [...]
The Strategy of Alliances Alliances in the technology sector are overwhelmingly evaluated based on revenue and for good reason. They deliver incremental revenue over above business as usual. However, revenue is a lagging indicator and does not provide insight into whether the alliance is achieving the strategic objectives for which it was formed. Revenue at the [...]
Because more and more, channels are becoming the preferred route to market for alliances. As a recent CRN article on the VCE alliance illustrates, when alliance managers choose channels they need to understand how they work, what motivates channel partners, what are the economics, and how to deal with channel conflict. With new models of [...]
Every organization has a unique culture as a result of the norms, values and accepted behaviors that are held within the community. People are often unaware that they do function within a company culture. However, when they begin to work closely with another company culture, they become aware of those differences because of the disconnects [...]