Alliance Pitfalls that Challenge Your Strategic Alliance Success (3032 Words)
Caveat Pars, Partners Beware! Alliance pitfalls, as with any collaborative activity, have its unexpected challenges. Actually, this is probably more so than in traditional adversary relationships. In adversary relationships you must always watch your back. In relationships based on trust or what is perceived as trust, one can be lulled into a false sense of […]
And You Expected Synergy? (374 words)
Seems like every time you pick up The Wall Street Journal, your own industry’s publications or your daily newspaper—there you see it. You read about another merger or acquisition. Why are they doing this you question? The usual answer is synergy. If you are looking at a possible merger or acquisition, decide early on your […]
PartnerShift—How to Profit from the Partnering Trend (1471 words)
We need banking, but do we need banks? We need groceries but do we need supermarkets? We need services and consumables but do we need to receive these things in traditional ways? Do we need your organization? The answer is: Only if your business truly creates value in the process of helping others to get […]
Conflict Management & Resolution for Your Partnering Success (679 words)
In times of conflict you can take one of two positions. First the position is that of having your heels dug in and believing you are RIGHT. The second position is where you care enough to understand what is motivating the other person’s behavior. My recommendation, as you might have guessed, is the second. Just […]
Keeping Your Alliance Alive & Healthy (892 words)
If every fool wore a crown, we should all be kings. -Welsh Proverb Let the sword decide after stratagem has failed. -Arabic Proverb I have heard it said that in an ideal marriage one partner is blind and the other deaf. There may be some wisdom in this old saying. To keep your strategic alliance […]
Ten Tips to Developing Outrageously Successful Alliance Relationships (129 words)
Behave toward your alliance partner the way you want them to behave toward you. It’s more important to be a good alliance partner and get things done, then to obsess on being right. Make relationship bank deposits before you try to make a withdrawal. Regularly share relationship value updates with your alliance partner. Know what […]
In Bed With the Enemy: How to Successfully Partner With Your Competition (1318 Words)
Strategic alliances are today commonplace among large corporations. The advantages allow these companies to successfully compete in the global marketplace. Powerful synergies are the outcropping of these alliances. Smaller companies can derive the same advantages through alliance relationships. In this article, I will focus on what I call Synergistic Partnering Alliances where competitors can realize […]
Generate Sales Leads for Your Clients through Cross-Pollination (442 words)
Today’s business-to-business, products and services, dealer/distributor can unfortunately by seen by many as simply a commodity—easily replaced by another. If you allow your customers to have that perception of you, it is your own fault. But why might so many people think you are simply a commodity? It is because you have not provided any […]
Making Your Alliances Work—Competent Collaborations (1482 words)
Competent collaborations…is the synergy worth the energy? The reason I ask this question is because, developing successful and profitable alliances is rarely easy. If it were, everyone would be doing it successfully. Many alliance consultants, and myself included, have determined that about 50% of the alliances created in the United States fail for one reason […]
Strategic Alliance Development Process (1199 words)
A solid alliance development process will minimize alliance failure. While successful alliances require work and process, the benefits justify the effort. To improve your organization’s performance, production and profitability you must do more than just fix a problem. You must burrow deeper and change the system (culture). The following steps will help you to evaluate […]
Three Key Activities for Successful Alliances (465 words)
What are the key activities for a successful alliance? In an issue of Industry Week, there was an article titled, Collaborating To Grow. Mentioned in the article, was a recent survey of U.S. executives taken by KPMG LLP. It appears that sixty-four percent of the responding executives plan to increase the use of strategic alliances […]
Value to Whom? (781 words)
Value Can be as Elusive as the Mythical Gene-in-the-Lantern Recently, following a visit to my home and the subsequent harvesting of my grapefruit tree, my friend found herself needing gasoline for her car late that evening. Upon arriving at a gas station, a person seemingly to be homeless offered to pump her gas for a […]
Grow Your Business with Smart Marketing Alliances (520 words)
An Alliance Jumpstart In most Smart Marketing Alliances you will either be the provider of a product/service or the provider of sales/distribution capabilities. Either of the two necessary components of your marketing alliance, will be the core competency you bring to the relationship. Pulling together competencies from two companies really does deliver more combined opportunity […]
Strategic Marketing Alliance; Develop Yours as Easy as ABC… (533 words)
Learn how to develop strategic marketing alliances. Alliance development and implementation can be as simple as A, B, C—well, actually A to G. I’m sure you can handle the extra letters. Follow this easy guide when building your marketing alliances or any strategic alliances for that matter, and your chances of success will increase ten […]
Want the Alliance or Results…What the Alliance Does for You? (516 words)
Alliance or Results…too frequently business people get confused as to the end game. They get derailed into thinking it is the conduit that they want rather than what the conduit delivers. The quintessential story about the ¼ drill; where as one buys the drill for what the drill will get them—a ¼hole in something Alliances […]
Acquisitions vs Alliances: the Basics (535 words)
In your effort to decide between acquisitions vs alliances there are several important considerations. While the benefits to your organization might greatly differ between the two, so goes for the cost of failure. To help you succeed, first defining the terms might prove extremely helpful to you in your decision process. Acquisitions Acquisitions and mergers […]
Should I Start a Strategic Alliance or Joint Venture? (593 words)
Strategic Alliance or Joint Venture…you are looking to gain that competitive edge over your competition. Many smart business leaders look to collaboration for expedient advantages. Might a mutually-beneficial relationship with another organization be in your future? If you answered in the affirmative, your next question will be, “Should I start a strategic alliance or a […]
Alliance Governance: Embrace the Diversity (525 words)
I like to call alliance success, “Partnering for Profits.” Unfortunately, a frequent alliance success pitfall is attempting to make your partner in your image—do things the way you do, think the way you think, and follow the same methodology. While it may appear in the short-term, to ease the rocky road of alliance governance, what […]
Effective Community Based Cross-Promotions (830 Words)
Local cross promotion activities generally serve small, independent, and franchise businesses. This strategy is low cost yet high return, if implemented correctly. Cross Promotion Strategies–Kinds of Cross Promotions Geographic & In-House Industry Specific Buying Group General Category Companion Products Related Tie-Ins Similar Customer Cross-promotion strategies can range from highly sophisticated with formalized contracts like with […]
Less Work & More Results with Collaborative Marketing Relationships (1408 words)
Strategic Alliances for Cross-Promotion A popular reason for companies to come together is to reciprocally promote one another. Ideas are as simple as a local pharmacy and dry cleaner promoting each other with specials or coupons, to regional promotions, to national promotions. Cross-promotions can be developed with competitors or between organizations from different industries. The […]
How Distributors Profit from the Partnering Trend (1470 Words)
Yes, distributors profit from embracing the new era of collaboration. We need banking, but do we need banks? We need groceries but do we need supermarkets? We need services and consumables but do we need to receive these things in traditional ways? Do we need distributors? Distributors Profit The answer is: Only if distributors truly […]
Community Partnering For Greater Retail Success (1526 Words)
Walking to my car, I heard loud music. This was not exactly what I expected in Grants Pass, Oregon on a warm Saturday July evening. I had just returned from an exhilarating jet boat excursion to Hellgate Canyon and enjoyed a ranch style dinner on the Rogue River. The music was getting louder and louder […]
Developing Strategic Alliances–What’s In It for Me? (2513 words)
(Chapter 1: Developing Strategic Alliances, featuring strategic alliance examples) “Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.” -W.H. Auden Reasons and Benefits of Developing Strategic Alliances The reasons for developing strategic […]