Leveraging to Maximise Opportunities
Most organisations seem to offer very similar solutions, and, in this "me too" approach to providing solutions results in a transfer of advantage from the seller to the buyer. Such an environment empowers the purchasing agent to dictate price, terms, conditions and deliverables. Leaving the seller impacted with eroded margins on goods and low returns service and support offerings.
Financial pressure and time constraints have also squeezed organisational resources, limiting internal ability to fill gaps in portfolio of offerings to End-User customers. The last four to five years, has witnessed many organisations following the trend to acquire technologies to fill these gaps, only to find that this can prove expensive – in that, the end result often results in acquisition of capabilities that are less desired. Today the growth by acquisition has become the reserve for the larger players in the market – able capitalise on their market share as fuel.
An increasing number of enterprise, large and small, have recognised that strategic partnerships can provide the desired capabilities to fill product and service gaps, and also address growth objectives – at a fraction of cost of going it alone.
In addition to sharing risk and investment, a well-structured, well-managed approach to partnership formation can not only allow both organisations to support goals, such as efficiency, productivity and competiveness, but also provide the foundation for organisations to leverage each other’s resources to maximise on opportunities within target markets.
Partnering has proved a reliable means to:
- rapidly increase revenue
- enhance and secure relationship with customers
- create serious competitive advantage
- have access to more marketing and sales capabilities that is an alternative to hiring these resources
- reduce the time, cost, effort in developing new offerings, new channels to market and
- increase focus and bandwidth on extending core product technologies and value propositions
Together, as partner organisations will have a much better chance of success in this highly competitive marketplace.