Strategic alliances have become a major factor in today's
business models. Strategic alliances can enable the
business owner to offer more services to their most valued
clients ' and for many businesses, strategic alliances are
the most profitable avenue of revenues.
Strengths of Strategic Alliances
According to recent research, 80% of surveyed CEOs found
strategic alliances beneficial for several purposes:
-Quickly enter into the marketplace
-Promptly obtain technology advancements without research
costs
-Minimize the budgetary costs typically associated with
growth investments
To ascertain what type of strategic alliance is right for
you, it is important that you assess your business
thoroughly. Are you looking to penetrate a greater volume
of the market share? Are you looking to reach a potential
partner's customer base? Would you like to launch a new
product line? Understanding your specific goals ' as well
as your market position, strengths, weaknesses, and
available resources ' will help you craft an appropriate
strategic alliance.
However, the main reason why strategic alliances fail is
because at least one of the partners is not happy with the
results. Why does this occur? In most cases, the strategic
alliance fails because a solid plan was not created at the
outset of the endeavor.
Know Your Business ' and Your Partner's
All strategic planning deals with three key questions:
-What do we do? It may sound simple, but to effectively
join efforts with a strategic partner, you must have a good
concept of what your business offers. Without a clear
defined understanding of every aspect of your goods and/or
services, it is nearly impossible to target a valuable
strategic partner.
-Who do we serve? Every business has a target customer or
client. That doesn't necessarily mean that your business
will solely market to that target profile, but it gives you
a deep understanding for who is using your products. This
allows you to key in on the specifics when choosing an
alliance partner.
-Who is our competition? In order to stay at least one step
ahead, it is important to keep informed as to who your
competitors are and what they are doing. By placing your
head in the sand like an ostrich on this issue only gives
your competitors an edge on rising above your business. In
order to compete in any business, you must not only "Keep
up with the Jones," but you must beat them. A huge benefit
to creating a strategic alliance partner is that often a
business can avoid competition by aligning with proper
partners.
Develop Your Plan
Alliances succeed with good planning. Whether you are
looking to join email marketing campaigns, or perhaps a new
product launch, a strategic alliance must have a clearly
developed plan. Within your plan, you must clearly define
several elements:
-Goals of the strategic alliance
-Specific marketing plans
-Analysis of cost sharing
-Defining the success of the relationship
-Encouragement of formal communication
-Marketing plan management details
Once a business and strategic alliance plan are in place, a
proactive search for alliance partners can then be
implemented. In order to create a solid strategic alliance,
the first step is creating an in-depth strategic plan.
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Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A strategic
Collaboration Marketing consulting firm. He empowers
business owners to discover and implement Integration,
Alliance, and Joint Ventures marketing tactics to solve
specific business challenges. He demonstrates how to create
your own Collaboration Marketing Strategy to increase your
sales, conversation rates, and repeat business.
Contact: christian@christianfea.com
http://www.christianfea.com
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