What are the best practices for managing multiple strategic partnerships across different domains?

Define what you are looking to solve for, for each kind of partnership. Is it quality of leads (referral partnerships, co-marketing)? Is it net-new revenue or expansion (co-selling or cross-selling)? Then for each of these, come up with goals and success criteria, and track them at a regular cadence (e.g. per quarter and per year). Make sure that you have resources to support each kind of partnership - if you're resource constrained, it is better to focus on the few that will have significant impact, rather than many that will have minimal impact. And ensure that you're making your partners successful - at the end of the day, partnerships need to work for all parties in order to succeed.

Managing multiple strategic partnerships across different domains requires a strategic approach. Assessing your current portfolio allows you to understand each partnership's strengths, weaknesses, and overall impact. This assessment can help you prioritize partnerships based on their strategic value and alignment with your goals. By conducting regular reviews and evaluations, you can ensure that each partnership delivers the expected value and identify any areas for improvement or adjustment. By strategically assessing and managing your portfolio of strategic partnerships, you can effectively leverage these relationships to drive mutual success across different domains.

Whether you have one key partner, or many, value in the relationship is essential. Many times there is more time devoted to screening potential partners in financial terms than nurturing longer term collaborative relationships. Partnerships must yield benefits for both entities, but they are more than just the deal. They are living systems that evolve progressively in their possibilities. Beyond the immediate reasons they have for entering into a relationship, the connection offers the parties an option on the future, opening new doors and unforeseen opportunities. Collaboration is key - building and creating new value through the relationship, rather than a simple exchange.

A key consideration at this stage is: what makes each such partnership actually strategic? What does that partnership contribute to your company's strategy, and how does your company's partnership contribute to the other company's strategy? This is ultimately what will justify the significant resources managing such a partnership requires. Much of it can and should be measured and tracked over time. Its progress will help steer the partnership and secure resources for it to contribute to both companies' objectives.

Building trust amid multiple strategic relationships requires key insights: Understand Ecosystem: Comprehend your partners' extensive offerings. Articulate Value: Highlight how your products enhance customer experience without undermining partners' offerings. Foster Collaboration: Partner with employees to discover common ground, explore co-selling, and be a reliable collaborator. Showcase Expertise: Demonstrate your team's proficiency in deploying and supporting partner solutions. Long-Term Vision: Commit to a long-lasting partnership, outlining mutual growth opportunities. You can establish a thriving partnership in this complex landscape by clarifying value, fostering collaboration, and prioritizing customer satisfaction.

Partnerships in this age need to be symbiotic and not just win-win. Complementing each others positioning in the market & capabilities that each bring together are first level checks. They then need to be assessed with clearly laid out expectations from each other, defining the dos and dont's and establishing clear SOPs keeping in mind changing business requirements.

Once you define it, stick to it, very easy to get caught up in noise and sometimes discerning signal is hard. If you are going to change you’ll need to make sure all stakeholders are notified

The expectations part can't be stressed enough. Understanding up front and being direct about what each side seeks re: things like lead sharing and co-selling activities can really avoid a lot of misalignment down the road...

Tired of mismatched partnerships draining your mojo?! use this:- Define your dealbreakers: What qualities spark joy (expertise!) and what quirks raise red flags (misaligned values!) ? Roles & responsibilities: You captain the ship (lead!), they navigate the tech (support!). Clear expectations = smooth sailing Metrics & feedback: Track progress like a fitness app (KPIs!) and give honest feedback (high fives & constructive criticism!). This criteria is your secret weapon: ➡️ Attract the right partners:Show 'em what love looks like (value proposition!) ➡️ Manage like a champ: Clear boundaries keep things drama & confusion free (transparency!) ➡️ Say goodbye when it doesn't'' work: No guilt - it wasn't'' meant to be (termination clause!)

Strategic diversification lies at the heart of partnership philosophy. We don't just accumulate partners, we create a diverse ecosystem of collaborations across our partner network. For example, we leverage specific platform strengths in the cloud hyperscaler landscape, like Amazon Web Services scalability and reliability across all the regions, Google Cloud Platform's data analytics and unique features for retail and e-commerce customers, and Microsoft Azure's enterprise integrations. By orchestrating these strengths, we create tailored solutions for clients, harnessing the full potential of cloud technology. This approach anticipates and embraces future advancements within the dynamic cloud landscape.

Sometimes, one key strategic partnership will be dictated by your company's original product choices. Say you built your solutions - and all of your team's technical skills - on one technology platform. Then, that platform's provider must be one of your strategic partners, and the rest of your portfolio will need to be built around it.

A few tips to get you started: Prioritize your partnerships based on their strategic importance and value to your business. Focus on developing and nurturing those partnerships that are most critical to your success. Focus on building strong, long-lasting relationships with your partners. Invest time in getting to know your partners, their needs, and their goals. This will help you to develop trust and build stronger partnerships. Remember that communication is key. Communicate regularly and openly with your partners. Share information, insights, and feedback. This will help you to build better relationships and improve collaboration.

Level up your portfolio with these 3 moves: 1. Unleash hidden magic: Mine your existing partnerships for best practices, learnings, and innovation gold. Replicate what shines, transfer wisdom, and watch your whole portfolio sparkle. 2. Think outside the box: Explore new partnership horizons that align with your goals and values. Diversify, experiment, and create strategic alliances that push boundaries and fuel growth. 3. Continuous evolution: Growth is a journey, not a destination. Regularly evaluate, optimize, and scale the value, impact, and potential of your partnerships.

Executive buy-in and ownership of goals is the fastest path to success, or lack thereof. So many times the alliance organization drives partnerships without first getting buy-in from the respective business unit leaders or executive team. This leads to frustration when the alliance org believes they are “crushing it” while the rest of leadership doesn’t understand the value or feel they are part of it. Classic “us vs them” that plagues alliance organizations.

In my experience, real strategic partnerships are few and far between. When a company tries to create too many partnerships, they seldom go well as planned. Instead, the real strategy is to define your strategic partnerships very narrowly, and only embark on building relationships with few (read less than 3) partners to begin with. Ensure you give enough time for these partnerships to blossom (after you have devoted proper resources towards their success.) Once you realize the ROI you sought from these partners (or not), then make decisions on whether to expand or embark on a whole new strategy. A few solid partners will deliver much more than many so-called named partners who simply are a drag on your resources...