Create successful strategic alliances

Question:

Are you successfully leveraging other people's businesses for your mutual success?

Answer:

At The Alpha Group we make certain that you assess the potential of strategic alliances on your companies growth and plan your next strategic alliance.

So, how does this happen?

Easy, its a six step-process using the power of the peer-to-peer advisory board.

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Firstly the peer-to-peer advisory board help you learn the benefits of strategic alliances.

A strategic alliance is a relationship between two companies to pursue a set of agreed upon goals, while remaining independent organisations.

According to The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals:

• There is a strong increase in the contribution of alliances to the market value of companies

• Companies with a diversity of alliances get more revenue from new products

The benefits

Strategic alliances often give partner companies:

1 Reduced costs through economies of scale

2 New business through joint marketing

3 Increased access to new technology

4 Entry to new markets

5 Reduced cycle time

6 Improved research and development

Which of the above benefits could apply to your company?

Please asterisk you What are your strategic conclusions on the above for your company?

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Secondly the peer-to-peer advisory board help you learn the strategic problem with alliances.

The failure rate of strategic alliances suggests that companies often lack the knowledge and skills to determine the strategic fit, negotiate win-win agreements, align organisational cultures, and - perhaps most important of all - get people to work together productively.

To form a strategic alliance, companies need to:

• Define your business vision and strategy in order to understand how an alliance fits your goals

• Evaluate and select potential partners based on the level of synergy and the ability of the companies to work together

• Develop a working relationship and mutual recognition of opportunities with prospective partners

• Negotiate and implement an agreement that includes systems to monitor performance

• Agree an exit point or a definite indicator that the strategic aims of the alliance need to be refocussed

Conflicts

Managing conflicts can occupy 80% of the management effort of running alliances. This is greatly reduced by open communication processes.

Some key questions to consider:

Does promoting other companies come into conflict with your professional services?

How much do you TRUST other companies? Do they consistently deliver what they promise?

What crucial things could an alliance partner do to damage your relationship with your customers?

A gentleman’s agreement - Alliance of convenience - A strategic alliance

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Thirdly the peer-to-peer advisory board help you plan for success by knowing yourself first.

1. Your key business goal for the next 12 months:

2. Your key business goals for the next 3 years:

*Alliances work best where companies take a longer-term view, not just looking to meet a short-term need.

What is the major obstacle to achieving these goals?

3. The key principles of your company:

*Alliances work best where members share and practice common principles.

Where do you sit in your industries food chain below?

Close to end customers

Bottom of the chain

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Fourthly the peer-to-peer advisory board help you assess how ready your company is for an alliance.

On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is barely adequate and 10 is outstanding:

1. How open is your company to sharing information and strategy externally?

2. What is your attitude towards sharing learning and knowledge externally?

3. How would you rate your investment in your people’s learning?

4. What is your company’s attitude to decision making? (1 = dictatorship - 10 = formal consensus decision making)

5. What is your attitude towards problem solving? (1 = blame culture – 10 = joint pre-emptive action)

6. How much do you know about your potential partner’s strategy? (1 = not at all – 10 = full knowledge and impacts managed)

7. How matched is the potential partner to your business? (1 – vastly different turnover – 10 = turnover matched)

TOTAL out of 70

0 - 24 = Look at internal operation of company before forming alliances

25 - 47 = Form strategic alliances with care in understanding the details

48 - 70 = Make strategic alliances a key strategy for your business growth

What is your key strategic conclusion on the above?

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Fourthly the peer-to-peer advisory board help you create your purpose for the strategic alliance.

Our best opportunity for an alliance is:

• Knowledge transfer and a willingness and desire to learn and stretch are key attributes that help bind strong alliances.

Our potential strategic alliance partners are:

A strategic alliance with the partners above would give us the following advantages:

For us:

For our partners:

For us jointly:

For our customers:

The tangible deliverable outcomes we want from an alliance are:

For us:

For our partners:

For us jointly:

For our customers:

What is your strategic exit from the alliance?

• If an alliance is successful it is often a way to test an idea before a formal JVC company is created. In addition, some alliances end in a merger or acquisition.

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Lastly the peer-to-peer advisory board help you take massive action.

The profound impact on you and your company of creating successful strategic alliances is that within 12 months you substantially increase your market value through your successful alliances.