Partnership Focus - Affinity Maker™

affinitymaker.com

What We Do

How We Do It

Who We Are

Affinity Engine

September-09

This Partnership Focus issue, is all about how to create and maintain successful partnerships. The first article will help you on how to measure and improve the value of your existing partnerships. And for those thinking to establish new partnerships or alliances “First Step: Plan, Plan, Plan” is a must read. You’ll also find in this issue our recomended reading, and the next Partnership Tip.

PARTNERSHIP HEALTH-CHECK
EXTRACTING MORE VALUE

Robin Power,
MD Asia Pacific at Affinity Maker™, explores how to maximise the value of your partnerships and alliances by measuring the health of these relationships and acting on what you find.

Are you interested in driving successful partnership performance
by focusing on the process of partnering itself and
building collaborative value?

Metrics give a clear view of whether a partnership is performing and how well, but not always why performance is what it is. Healthy partnerships have been shown to deliver higher performance and contribute more to corporate value.

A well designed partnership ‘health check’ goes beyond the metrics and scorecards and quantifies what has previously been the domain of “gut feel”. It should discover where a partnership isn’t working and probe the reasons why. It should also reveal the bright spots that create an opportunity to leverage what is working and to exploit what might be a competitive advantage. Overall partnership performance can be optimised and companies can better leverage their alliance or partnership investment.

A partnership ‘health check’ should provide the following perspectives:

The partner’s view of you.
The partner’s view of your key competitors.
Your opinion of what you think your partners view is.
Your view of your partner.
All of the above for different geographies or partnership types

Some of the benefits of a well designed partnership ‘health check’ include:

Measuring partner “health” (versus satisfaction) on a regular basis, over time and track results/trends in partnership performance.
Compares internal perceptions (executives, alliance team and other stake holders) with the partner’s perception of the relationship.
Enable competitive differentiation to be driven through partnering.
Measure partner loyalty and inclination to promote your products and technology
Discover unmet needs in enabling your partners to succeed.
Identify which actions will be most effective in improving performance.
Address relationship issues before they impact performance, reducing the risk of relational failure and non-delivery.
Measure the effectiveness of specific partner campaigns and initiatives.

However, whilst we can be sure that we are measuring the right things to identify how to make the business partnership succeed, without effective action things will still fail. Worse, if the findings aren’t shared with the partners and no change ensues, the diagnostic can actually backfire. Partners have an expectation that their feedback is important and will cause change. When nothing happens, partners feel let down and attitudes can worsen.

While the diagnostic delves into the specific issues and workings of each individual alliance, it should also enable you to understand systemic issues, those that affect the entire alliance community and lead you to action on a broader scale that improves alliance performance across the portfolio. A well designed partnership health diagnostic will enable you to segment:

By your partnership types e.g. distribution, marketing
By Geographies
By Respondent Job type

The unique Mindshare Diagnostic Model we use is based on 10 years of alliance and partnership research. This provides a set of 52 specific, measurable, attributes which consistently impact business relationship performance.

“Mindshare” can be thought of as the consequence of successful Relationship Management. “Mindshare” is the propensity of a partner to place greater emphasis on the longer term development and achievement of the alliance objectives. “Mindshare” is a key determinant of alliance success and explains performance variation.

As a result we understand what things really matter to the decision makers in partnerships. We ask the questions that are proven to link the perceived view of the relationship to concrete root causes and proven actions and solutions. Mindshare Diagnostic projects have been conducted in over 40 countries in 26 languages across different cultures with organisations including Oracle, Xerox, Cranfield University and Acer. To find out more Contact Us.

STEP 1: PLAN, PLAN, PLAN

By Rubilda Segura

Global Head of Marketing & IT at Affinity Maker™

Once companies have decided to explore the formation of partnerships and alliances as strategy for corporate growth, all too often they rush into the process with the familiarity of the quarterly sales quota in mind:

"Sign them up and let's start making money!”

This is a sure fire way to drive any partnership or alliance, and the organisations involved, into the ground! Organisations in this situation need to realise that by partnering they are sharing the fate of their business with another entity. This alone, should be a reason strong enough to insist on having clear objectives, a clearly defined process, and a sound set of alliance establishment and management skills in place.

Why are alliances more complicated than managing your own internal sales organisation?

Here are some reasons:

A part of your strategy will be connected with the strategy of your partner
Your organisation is now responsible not only for representing your own company but for properly representing your partner
Coordination between the two organisations is a full time task
The 'rules of engagement' laid down in the partnership agreement, can become another input into the product development process:

compatibility
functionality
timing
etc.

Your executive reporting system needs to be enhanced with the ability to see performance information from the perspective of the alliance objectives

The challenges in managing a go-to-market strategy through partnerships or alliances should not be underestimated. Attracting and selecting the ‘right’ partners who are aligned and culturally compatible with your own organisation is fundamental. Still for example, you need to identify differences and develop a partnership framework covering partnership governance, processes and behaviours addressing strategic, legal, operational, financial and structural matters.

Organisational adjustments are also required. For example, signing the partnership or alliance agreement before determining the process of performance evaluation or relationship management is a sure recipe for partnership failure. These things must be dealt with before formal engagement between the organisations.

Affinity Maker™ uses a set of best practices to assist organisations through the preparatory stages of a beginning Partner Program. To find out more, Contact Us.

BUSINESS ALLIANCE GUIDE:
THE HIDDEN COMPETITIVE WEAPON

A map of the various options one has on the journey through an alliance; the principles of design; new insights into what has been missing in order to understand alliances; how to find the right partners; purchaser-supplier alliances; some of the consequences that occur when certain principles are violated; how to improve the chances of obtaining excellent results from an alliance and much more … FIND IT

Develop clear, appropriate communications about the partnership: Lack of communication between partners and beneficiaries will breed suspicion and resentment and will fuel personal agendas. Set up good processes to network and share information. Evidence shows that the more you inform, the more satisfied people will be.

Find us on: