Alliances and partnerships between IT companies are collaborative agreements in which all participants concede to achieve a common goal. Alliances are becoming more popular as businesses seek new ways of collaboration to accelerate growth. According to a recent PWC survey, US CEOs are seeking more of these types of strategic alliances in 2014, and most want to hang onto the ones they have: 42% plan to enter one this year; only 4% expect they’ll exit an existing relationship.
Meaningful partnerships can be the foundation for success. Partnerships is what enables many companies to access new technologies and highly desired skills, increased market reach or simply break down barriers to enter your market. Here are some advantages you should consider if you didn’t decide yet if partnerships are good for your business:
Gain competitive advantages
Through access to your partner’s resources, including markets, technologies, capital and people, you gain a competitive advantage. For instance, Toshiba’s approach to develop partnerships for different technologies helped the company to become one of the leading players in the global electronics industry. Toshiba’s alliance with Motorola has helped it become a world leader in the production of memory chips.
Focus on what you do best
While your partner can concentrate on other activities, your company will get the opportunity to focus its resources on what it does best, streamlining the competitive advantage for both of you. It is critical to define what is core to your business and what activities have support functions for your expertise. Don’t forget that support functions are highly important for your business.
In 2013, Accenture and GE have formed a strategic global alliance to develop technology and analytics applications that help companies across a range of industries take advantage of the massive amounts of industrial strength big data that is generated through their business operations. The two companies jointly develop and market new technology services that can substantially impact efficiency and productivity. GE’s technology is used to build core application capabilities and integrate internal GE applications, while Accenture’s Managed Mobile Services Platform is leveraged to integrate with third-parties and support device communications.
Faster time-to market
In a world where customer needs continue to change, no one company can do it all. A strategic partnership will add complementary resources and capabilities, enabling your business to grow and expand more quickly and efficiently. Especially technology companies rely heavily on the ability to faster bring innovative products to market. Through a partnership you will save time and boost productivity.
Reach new markets and increase brand awareness
You can use strategic partnerships to benefit from new channels of distribution and the brand reputation of bigger players. Prior to pursuing a partnership, you should identify businesses that offer different, yet complimentary services from yours, but serve similar and potential markets a you.
As global markets open up and competition grows, you need carefully develop relationships if you want to create more opportunities to sell your products and services, to generate new revenue streams, and to respond to customer demand.
