So now you’ve signed the partnership agreement, what next?
There is a great focus on the identification and recruitment of partners for software, hardware and services organisations within the technology space. Clearly when you are looking to scale your business, enter new markets or broaden capabilities then a solid partner model is nearly always the right thing to do. In most cases it is perceived as cost effective, and helps avoid organisations having to invest in non-core areas and additional staff.
The generally held wisdom is that the collaboration will bring value (with revenue and growth opportunities) being created from day one.
In my experience this is just the start of the journey and it is what happens next that will make the partnership work (or not!)
A large part of the effort is spent getting to the event where the deal is signed and announcements are made with great expectations from both sides. That is when everyone sits back, passes round the cigars and waits for the $$s to roll in the door.
My view is that this is when the real work starts and companies need to be very focussed with a clear set of objectives to make the partnership work. I suggest that we need to consider and apply some simple rules that will form the basis for a successful partnership;
Expectations
It is necessary for partners to share common goals and agree who does what and when.
Consider these questions
What is your business objective? Does it match your partners? Is it a revenue number or a client acquisition target?
Who will lead and who will follow. Is it joint selling or will one partner take point?
How will the two businesses communicate? Is a communications matrix needed at different levels? Tech/ commercial/ executive etc
Plan
Consider the key activities that you will undertake together during the first few months of the partnership. Which of these will be actioned together and which will be delivered in isolation.
By agreeing a plan with balanced, clear actions and owners this will serve to create an environment where people can get involved and become stakeholders.
One of the key drivers for any strong technology partnership is to have your internal champions…these are the people that will take the lead and make it work.
Enable
How will you enable each other sales organisations? All proposal content, pricing technical data and other relevant material must be shared in a common repository.
Partnerships often fail because companies do not share relevant and concise content to develop joint business.
Legal agreements should be defined up front to avoid confusion and minimize hurdles for joint engagement.
Content must be kept up to date AT ALL TIMES!.
Measure
How we measure the partnership is often an area that gets overlooked and a regular review process must be conducted. This is necessary to measure the progress and agree on corrective actions needed to keep things on track. All appropriate stakeholders should contribute to this exercise on a regular basis. Often the financial goals can get overlooked if there is lots of activity. Activity does not always necessarily equate to success so the process needs to be rigorous and as objective as possible.
Conclusion
A technology partnership can be a fruitful way to develop a business with a strategic partner. But like any business initiative the path to success is littered with barriers and traps that we need to overcome. By applying some simple rules and keeping things in focus we can overcome them
