Collaboration or partnership has many benefits, ranging from lower costs to greater reach. The restaurant which structures joint promotions with local playhouses and movie theatres could attract lots of long term customers, with its partners also experiencing sustainable increases in business. However, alliances or joint ventures can also directly or indirectly produce unique problems, as the world is seeing with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. That venture has 50 partners in more than 100 locations around the world and it has encountered serious setbacks such as batteries which catch fire.
In 2010, reports the SUPPLY CHAIN QUARTERLY, McKinsey & Company, Nielsen, and the Grocery Manufactureres Association conducted its annual Customer and Channel Management Survey (CCM). What it found was this: About 80 percent of the companies interviewed used collaboration but only twenty percent indicated that they generated results worth the effort.
In our experience, we at Image Marketing Consultants found that not every professional or organization can successfully partner. Here are 4 questions to ask before deciding to collaborate.
Do you have the necessary expertise? Partnering increases the complexity of any initiative exponentially. No one can enter the situation blind. If you don’t know what you’re doing hire a consultant or an employee who does know the field. Partnerships allow you to enter new territory, but you still need guidance.
Can you identify a partner or partners which can gain as much as you from the venture? You may be interested in increasing sales and your partner in enhancing its brandname. The project must be structured so both can accomplish that without undermining the success potential of the other. When the outcomes aren’t mutually satisfying, trouble starts. That usually takes the form of delays.
Do you and the potential partners have resources for as long as the project might take? Typically, organizations underestimate the time it takes to reach a goal. Therefore, you must have access to more resources than you initially need. Those could range from borrowing power to the ability to keep recruiting volunteers.
How will you measure “success?” You and your partners have to be realistic about, for example, when the venture will be expected to reach “breakeven,” that is, enough revenue coming in to equal or exceed the revenue going out. The metrics have to account for what setbacks can be tolerated. Those might include 20 percent returns on online orders.
Kate Sirignano, founder and head of Image Marketing Consultants, invites you to a complimentary consultation on partnerships as well as marketing, public relations, special events, and social media kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com 203-404-4868.