• I get too many emails from technology vendors; I have no time to review or evaluate them all
• I do want to hear from technology companies, but they are so bad at communicating!
• Technology companies do not understand our business. They need to invest time in getting to know us.
• I want to build better partnerships but I haven’t got time!

And speaking to some of the product and services companies I know, I would hear the converse:

• There’s no way I can scale across the agency sector
• I want to speak to agencies but they are a strange breed, and I don’t know who to contact
• Agencies are either very large and very arrogant or very small and not tech-savvy enough – or they don’t have the resource I need to justify my investment in them
• I can only focus my business development on the very largest agencies

True, identifying the appropriate agency contact can be very difficult for technology companies. Who is it in the agency that cares enough to pay attention to a speculative approach from a product company? Who cares about the enabling technology behind the client solution? And how do I differentiate my approach in order to secure their attention?

I decided we needed a platform for introductions. A chance for emerging and exciting technology companies to have their opportunity to put their case across to an agency audience, and a format to support it. So I came up with Digital Sparks, hooked up with my friends at ChannelCreator, and set about inventing a brand new event. The idea is for something similar to a speed-dating evening, but where selected technology providers get to flaunt their proposition in front of an invited audience composed of anyone who might need proprietary technology as part of their client solutions. Maybe more of a beauty pageant? We’re inviting agency CTOs, Heads of Digital, Strategy and Business Development Directors, CEOs, Alliance Managers, Technology Directors and so on; the variety of job titles we are uncovering as we search just goes to reflect the diverse attitudes and approaches of agencies to the world of technology which – after all – assists them to build innovative, sophisticated and technically slick client solutions in a complex digital world.

Our sponsors (still recruiting!) are from

• social business
• experience management
• content for mobile
• advertising management
• accelerated content distribution
• digital signage – content scheduling, distribution, monitoring and reporting

I naturally hope Digital Sparks will be a success, and will be repeated, perhaps outside of London too. There are other events on the scene and on the horizon that complement it well, such as EMC Consulting’s ‘The Fantastic Tavern’, BIMA’s ‘Thirst Thursday’ and Last Thursday CMS Meetups and it would be good to know that we have come up with something different, which has successfully catalysed new partnerships and new business, and resulted in some digital innovation. Maybe I’ll see you there?

Siobhan McElhinney, Head of Corporate, Kemp Little LLP

The theme of the session was ‘Growing and exiting businesses’, and we were led through a number of practical, financial and legal considerations for businesses with an acquisition exit strategy. The reasons I  attended were non-specific; I wanted to hear more about this area, understand some of the terminology  and considerations for developing businesses looking to be bought and see whether and how it might apply to tech partnerships. I am very glad that I went.  There was much that resonated in terms of managing partnerships – perhaps most particularly in the discussion around IPR and building Heads of Terms of an agreement.

We usually think of terms sheets (much the same thing as a MoU or Letter of Intent) as a vital step in engagement for equity investment, acquisitions and joint ventures, but they’re very applicable in the partnership lifecycle too. Drawing up Heads of Terms creates a mutual understanding for both sides of an alliance and allows for multiple areas to be brought to the table. These documents are not legally binding in Britain, but they are a common tool favoured by UK and US businesses for creating a set of ‘moral’ commitments. Interestingly, the intercultural angle was raised; namely that organisations should take care (and probably professional advice) when embarking on such exercises with foreign entities; our presenter Siobhan McElhinney pointed out that in parts of continental Europe signed terms sheets can be viewed as enforceable.

Why be that formal though? Companies can often see very quickly the advantages of joining forces opportunistically, or for ongoing casual cooperation (you show me your client lists, I’ll show you mine…. ). Embarking on a new alliance can be very exciting and paperwork and process can seem like a whole pain the ass – especially when the liaison is just tentative anyway. So is there any point in setting things down on paper? What if one party already has a stringent partner programme and associated contracts and you need to sign up to it ‘as is’ in order to join the game?

My opinion: it’s all about setting and managing expectations; not just with your intended ally, but with your own management team and exec as well. It’s advisable to be very, very clear about what you are anticipating from a partner relationship, what you are willing to invest, the commitments you are prepared to make and what you expect in return. Marcus Anselm of Clarity mentioned that the deal failure rate in acquisitions is extremely high, in the region of two-thirds of all those embarked on. This is matched in the field of alliances, where the popular statistic is for 60% of partnerships to fail within the first two years. My long-held view is that this failure rate comes down largely to inadequate understanding and senior sign-off on the key purpose of the partnership and the fundamental commitments on each side from the beginning. Of course, other factors later come into play – loss of focus, dwindling executive support, strategic misalignment, personality clashes and petty squabbles can all mar the original vision. However  with good underlying planning and preparation, underpinned by a simple terms sheet, these things can be managed successfully. A terms sheet is also a living document, that can be part of a periodic review and adjusted should significant factors in the relationship change. It can subsequently form the basis of a full legal partner agreement, or a fully detailed framework agreement for joint enterprise.

It doesn’t have to be heavy, or even too detailed, but when two parties are ready to start building an agreement, working through a terms sheet is a good way of surfacing any areas which could be the subject of later disagreement and ensuring everyone is on the same page. I would introduce it after the evaluation process. Evaluation can be more or less formal – I prefer a checklist approach which is based loosely on best practice sales opportunity qualification; but it might be done as an instinctive assessment – a quick reckoning and a handshake over a few beers even. However you are evaluating a potential new partnership, swiftly penning some Heads of Terms would be a definite next stage before risking the wasting of further resources in a relationship which could otherwise be doomed to failure.

You'll be shaking on it soon...

What kind of things would you be likely to cover off in such a document? Well – anything from a statement on the purpose of the relationship to specific terms on client support, access to licences, training and commercials; and these will likely all be subject to a degree of negotiation and iteration before both sides will sign up to the terms overall. I’ll be adding a pro-forma for a terms sheet to the Resources section of this site in due course and in a future post I’ll take a closer look at a this as a tool and what might typically be included. What’s your view? Do you insist on Heads of Terms for new partnerships? Essential or just a nice-to-have?

An understanding of the principle of culture in partnerships would be incomplete without a word or two on international culture and communications. Many Alliances roles now involve communication with overseas clients, colleagues and partners, and the British in particular do have the propensity to lean somewhat on the spurious belief that, since English is the ‘ universal language of business’, we can expect business to be conducted according to our parochial norms. The quickest way for me to illustrate the fallacy of this is via some scenarios, all of which are TRUE STORIES and all of which were entirely avoidable with a little consideration and preparation.

1. A few years ago a major global software company invited its partners to present thought-leadership pieces at a local Spanish conference of CTOs in Seville. No-one had done their research and informed all the presenters that slides should be in Spanish, subtitled, or else that interpreters should be provided on stage. Spaniards are immensely proud of  their own language(s) and the indigenous business culture is geared heavily towards those foreigners who bother to address them in their own language. As a result of the presentations being written solely in English, the CTOs at the conference were unable to follow the detailed content and industry jargon, many lost interest and left early.
2. A Japanese prospect visited the London office of a successful IT company to meet with the senior executives. The execs were not prepared for this visit, had done no research on Japanese business basics and a) were dressed down as usual; b) did not have business cards ready “Oh, I left them downstairs, I’ll get you one later” ; and c) one exec took the card proffered by the Japanese visitor, didn’t look at it and shoved it straight into his shirt pocket. While a casual approach to a new client may suit the London ‘vernacular’, this behaviour before a Japanese visitor was pure crass ignorance. The company did not win the business.
3. A friend of mine who runs a successful IT software channel in the Middle East and South Eastern Europe regaled me when we caught up recently with stories of how he ‘manages’ the locals in his partner channel. It is certainly a different way to do business to what we are used to in Western Europe and North America. Yet even with his years of experience, he admitted to still making cultural bloopers: during a recent trip to Tel Aviv he went into a McDonalds with an Israeli colleague (cultural anathema in itself, you might say) and asked for a cheeseburger. He was politely declined (because the cheese is not allowed in burgers under kosher dietary laws). I don’t believe in this instance any offence was caused – however it would be easy to imagining an insensitive visitor making the situation worse. It’s worth being aware of the basics of the prevalent religion; it’s just a form of courtesy and diplomacy, after all.
4. During an international European trade show, a colleague from a partner company was guesting on a main exhibitor’s stand. The partner was a major US vendor, the exhibitor a British company expanding into Europe. The US visitor, dressed in open-necked shirt and chinos, gave the impression of being relaxed, warm and approachable. The British salesman co-hosting the booth took this as a signal that ‘anything goes’ and during quiet moments of the show began telling jokes and anecdotes, often using quite offensive language, about some of his colleagues – which in British company would typically be read as workplace banter. However the American was soon visibly uncomfortable and began to explain to the British guy that in US corporate office culture, such language and subject matter could be seen as harrassment. The British guy was taken aback and thought his US colleague was acting ‘square’. This was clearly not the case, and indicated a fundamental difference in expected levels of professionalism. Both parties accepted these cultural differences once they were explained, but not without some discomfort remaining on both sides.

Having some awareness of international culture and differences might be as simple as understanding which days and hours are normal office hours in a different country, or which are the public holidays. However it is typically rather more complex than that, and if you really want to build favour with your contacts from different cultures, it can help to have some research under your belt.

I have recently come across the work of the  Farnham Intercultural Centre at Farnham Castle, Surrey. I’m impressed to find such a facility in my hometown and I am encouraging more Alliance Managers to take up workshops there to improve their international awareness – which will surely be a boon in managing relationships across countries and continents.

Please see my events page for details of a forthcoming workshop run by experienced Farnham Castle trainers – and you can register for a place on this one-day course here

(Image: Information Britain)

Do you have your own observed examples of intercultural ineptness? Bloopers of a massive order? Where has lack of preparation for international business created difficulties – and how did you overcome them? Would love to hear from you!

In the previous post I suggested that it would be interesting and useful to gain consensus in what might characterise an ‘ideal partner’ for your company. You may be thinking along the lines of the following (these are just some examples).

Our ideal partner:

• brings us qualified leads
• generates a significant contribution to our revenue
• trains its personnel in our technology
• feeds back suggestions for product or service enhancements
• does not badmouth our products to clients or competitors
• treats us as a preferred or exclusive supplier
• generates great testimonial for our product or service
• treats us as strategic to their business
• gives us free licences
• creates innovative go-to-market activity with us
• extends their city-centre facilities to us for client presentations and meetings
• etc

Remember, whatever your ideal partner looks like, your prospective or actual partner companies will have some indication of their own as to what they are looking for – ask them to describe their ideal partner company back to you. Encourage them to identify desirable partner characteristics over and above any obligations which would form part of a regular partnership agreement. Though you may not be an exact match you at least now have a paradigm to share with your colleagues to explain certain behaviours and expectations on their part.

Areas for cultural misunderstanding

Many IT companies (and I’m thinking specifically of technology vendors here) will expect their channel and alliance partners to conform to certain rules and practices simply because that is what they are used to. They may have spent months designing and rolling out a partner programme to enable them to scale their partner operations and this inevitably leads to commoditisation of their channel.  Unfortunately, it can sometimes be impossible to pigeonhole a partner, and then there is all sorts of scope for misunderstanding. A typical scenario is when a vendor looks to work with partners outside of  its familiar resale channel and moves into the world of ‘influence’, i.e. non-reselling channels, such as service providers, systems integrators and ISVs. This is where you might witness, for example, the arrogance-clash of a major Enterprise IT vendor working with a major Systems Integrator, each thinking they call the shots and protesting ‘isn’t this the tail wagging the dog?’.  Both sides may be witholding information on mutual prospects and leads (while desperately wanting and needing the shared intelligence that a ‘kimono-opening’ exercise will bring), and flexing their relative corporate muscle.

In these instances, the key is to revert to the original objectives for the partnership, reminding both parties what it is intended to achieve, and gaining consensus on what the respective roles of the parties are. I’ve witnessed a few battles over ‘who will prime the deal?’. I’m not going to discuss conflict resolution or distribution of risk here – but it’s not difficult to see that a good level of inter-partner cultural awareness, including a heads-up on the personalities involved, enables situations such as this to be pre-empted and managed more smoothly.

Here’s another common area of cultural misalignment: accounting periods. Product sales companies are driven by quarterly reporting periods, with their sales people usually aiming to maximise their recognised revenues on the same basis. Services companies tend to operate on annuity businesses or monthly recurring revenues, and are less interested in or bound by quarterly practices. This can lead to tension, but even acknowledging this difference in approach can ease things up a bit and lead to better cooperation.

Building cultural bridges between partners

Take time to understand the partner’s culture, e.g.

• What are their drivers and hot topics?
• Where are their constraints?
• What are their big turn-offs?
• How formal are they?
• Do their senior execs take an interest in partners?
• Do they have a good partnering track-record and ethos? (What do other partners say about them?)
• What language and company buzzwords do they have?
• Do they tweet or blog?
• What are your main sponsor’s objectives and how are they recognised (paid)?

I recall being slightly shocked, and certainly intrigued, the first time (many years ago) I heard one of my colleagues ask a senior contact from a partner company ‘So what are you paid on?’ Meaning – ‘what revenue and other objectives do you need to deliver on in order to earn bonuses?’ I thought this was rather rude! But I quickly came to realise this is a natural element of discourse and bonding between partner sales people. Each party needs to understand how they can assist the other in achieving success. It’s the best way of getting someone quickly onside. This is what establishing ‘win-win’ is all about. And it doesn’t stop there: having a business ally is paramount to building your network and profile across the rest of their organisation. Their good word becomes your testimonial, and they are going to help you to articulate the value of teaming with your organisation to their internal hierarchy.

Do your client-facing account managers know who their counterpart is within partner organisations? Charging them with developing those external relationships is a grand way of guaranteeing opportunity identification and progression. How will you incentivise them to take time out to nurture those relationships? Is there a way you can activate them? As a team leader within a partner practice, I would be ensuring that each of my client-facing account managers had a section on partner relationship building within their account plan. If possible I would link one of their bonus objectives to demonstrating progress in this area.

If your company is treating its partnerships strategically then it might also consider deliberate social activity such as team-building events in order to reinforce inter-company bonding. It is important not to forget the multithreaded essence of a great partnership. Alliances in IT and digital media are in no way the sole domain of sales, biz dev and marketing. One of the strongest areas for cohesion is likely to be amongst the technical community – and if you don’t make deliberate efforts to generate a rapport there (via user groups, knowledge transfer, virtual communities, social events, team-building and hospitality exercises etc) then you can rest assured that informal networks outside of your influence will eventually develop between organisations in any case.

Establishing good multi-threaded relationships across a partnership is vital to cultural bridge-building and should be an active element of your overall partnering plan. Make sure your teams and execs communicate their cultural learnings back to you or your partner practice/partner account managers as they go.

Do you have examples of great practice in strengthening the cultural bond between two or more technology business partners? Please let me know!

In part 3 of this series, I will take the question of understanding cultural difference to an international level.

“You have a POOL TABLE in your canteen? Do you EVER do any work?”

“Did you know, at xyz company they are not allowed to forecast business unless it’s convenient to the quarterly analyst report”

“We don’t have dress-down Friday. We have dress-UP Friday. And Cupcake Monday, to get us all in the mood for the week ahead”

“Our HQ is on a campus site. Everyone drives. No-one goes to the pub after work, but we have a massive coffee culture”

“Never ring the MD on a Tuesday. Golf. Or mistress. One or the other. Shhhhh”.

OK then …! Noted

Image courtesy of ginside.com

Still, being aware of culture is a non-trivial matter and for those interested in building alliances, it’s a key element of partnering readiness. It gives you the language, non-verbals (eg dress code) and practical insights (company lore and legend, bonhomie, bloopers and no-go discussion areas) to really start to build a bond with a new partner. It can also be used as a measure of progress, for example as part of a healthcheck exercise, to see how well you and your employees know the company they are working with and how well they know you in return.  Knowing what your alliance partner considers a ‘win’ is no different from having an informed sales relationship.

Being able to demonstrate familiarity with another company’s customs and modus operandi is also a great way to score points off the competition and to win favour up and down the partner’s business, whether there is basic cultural compatibility there or not. Importantly, building such understanding can ultimately help avoid conflict and give parties a tool for resolving issues and differences if they arise.

As an indicator and variable of inter-company relationships, culture often slips way down the list of considerations; and yet, it’s one of the most important to grasp. Maybe this is so because ‘relative culture’ between partner organisations is a little difficult to gauge, measure and describe. It is admittedly the ‘touchy-feely’ bit. Part of the gift of the true alliance professional is the ability to look past metrics and tools and revert to instinct. And then to share their insight if, as and when appropriate – to their exec, to colleagues and to others. Cultural awareness relies heavily on good, regular, personal communications – and yes, to an extent, upon the grapevine too.

Part 1: Internal Culture – look within

I don’t believe you can even start to work with partners or build alliances until you understand your own business’ culture. This may start with a ‘rough feeling’ as to what your company’s style is. What characterises your company? Is your company relaxed and ‘media’? Is there a drinking and socialising culture? Or is there a quiet seriousness and high level of internal governance? Pressure and tension when the boss is in town?  How process-intensive are you? What’s the utilisation rate like? How well do the company directors communicate a vision for the company? Is it credible, and is there a sense of common purpose? Is everyone singing from the same hymnsheet when describing your business to potential or actual partners?  An Alliance Manager needs to be able to articulate the key elements of their own company culture to others – so it’s worth putting some thought behind what these are and ensuring they are consistent with others.

Try this: Ask colleagues “how would you describe working here to another company?”

What’s your company’s ‘partnering culture’? Is partnering tacitly or explicitly known to be strategic?  Is it taken seriously; is there a budget and resource to support partnership activity? What are the known constraints?

Building a strong internal partnering practice should start with the internal partnering culture. For instance, if we assume that your company does have a partner-oriented strategy, it is worth widening the ‘partner team’ circle to more employees to let them know this and seek input. Do they understand in what ways partnerships could impact or assist their role? What ideas do they have for ways to benefit from the partnership? How might they be asked to contribute to the partnership in future -and why? What language exists internally for distinguishing existing partnerships, e.g. ‘alliance partner, channel partner, solution partner’. Is there any perceived sense of tiering or importance between the companies you are allied with? What experience do your team have of working with other companies and what intelligence can they share back with you? (More on internal partner practices in a later post)

You should establish partnering ‘big rules’ and communicate these within your own organisation. Keep people in the loop and let them know what is expected of them. I would recommend that this includes messages around diplomacy and client relations too. For example, it is very damaging to partner relations to have a partner come to you and say  ‘One of your techies has been telling customer X our technology doesn’t do what we sold it to do and that it has a limited roadmap’. Ooops! Clients do sometimes like to stir things up between partners, true, but having a strong basis for a partnership, great inter-company culture and executive support can help pre-empt or mitigate situations like this.

A good question to ask yourselves is “What does the ideal partner look like?”. To do this, you should be referring to the expectations and hopes you have from your partners. Are they primarily extending your sales reach (coverage)? Do they complement your technical capability? Or are they vital to your business’ credibility?

Try writing out a short list of criteria and test it with other people in the organisation.

Our ideal partner DOES this

Our ideal partner DOES NOT do this

Remember though, whatever YOUR ideal partner looks like, your prospective or actual partner companies will have some indication of their own as to what they are looking for – ask them to describe their ideal partner company back to you. You’ll learn a lot.

In the next post I’ll be developing this idea of understanding of your partner’s business better in order to augment the value of the partner relationship.

My big fat handbook

And so. Autonomy are hosting their Exec Forums in London this week and they have new messaging based on three categories: ‘Power’, ‘Protect’ and ‘Promote’. Thursday’s event was ‘Promote’ – their positioning for the digital marketing arena, based around a tagline of ‘Meaning Based Marketing’. Every guest was presented with a big fat handbook describing the thinking and products behind their ‘Promote’ solution offerings: multichannel optimisation; social media analysis; web content management; rich media management; contact centre management and ad management. Man, they talk a good talk. Better than that, their stuff is so compelling, I could bore the earlobes off a many-eared listenipede with tales of what their kit can do. It’s genuine ear candy. And yet … Beyond the talk I’m still not convinced that they can genuinely ‘do the do’…

Here’s why.

I can’t help sometimes feeling that Autonomy have been successful in spite of themselves. They are a difficult business to engage with, especially as a partner. They don’t prioritise partnership; alliance management in their business is sparse; there is little or no pre-sales resource to deliver sustained knowledge transfer and give partners a technical edge , no sense of community, no user group nurtured, no appetite for joint go-to-market or for showcasing joint success. Fans of Autonomy, shareholders and no doubt their exec and leaders, CEO and founder Mike Lynch and CFO Sushovan Hussein would point to the balance sheet and say ‘And your point is…?’

Here’s my point. I’m asking whether proof of their success to date is enough, for them to succeed in the (rather competitive and bustling) YAMP (Yet Another Marketing Platform) market they are aspiring to address?

Yesterday we heard loads about some really buzz areas – notably, multivariate testing (MVT) , dynamic real-time site optimisation, recommendations and sentiment analysis and their link to’ meaning-based marketing’ as a whole. No-one is in any doubt that Autonomy tech can do what it says – and they have cool client testimonials to prove it: big names and big numbers. But my question is HOW they will convincingly reach their target market with this proposition without the digital agencies massively onside. To win them over they need to be doing things a little differently. Agencies can be very difficult to penetrate too – and Autonomy’s slightly quirky propositions need a bit of ‘getting your head around’, not to mention significant training investment – so Autonomy need to make life as easy as possible for their new best friends. People in the social media and marketing communities have an abundance of low-cost tools and technology available to them and their heads won’t easily be turned by a vendor they may perceive as too ‘Enterprise’ (read: big, dry, expensive, out of touch with the cutting edge of web and mobile…) The digital marketing tech community is warm and vibrant and they all talk to each other. Autonomy needs to be in there, driving the conversation. Great, they had Ashley Friedlein, CEO of Econsultancy delivering a (fascinating) social media keynote at the forum. But where were the partner testimonials? For all the social media aspirational blurb, there was no vibe about the day out there, no mobile signal in the building, no wifi access provided, no Twitter hashtag for the event, none of the expected industry stalwarts in the audience. I am yet again getting the sense of a credible Enterprise vendor trying to play Digital ‘scene’ with no real understanding of what that entails. Time will tell. I’d truly love to see Autonomy succeed in helping Digital Britain deliver on its promise but until they put more resource into providing a way for would-be partners to confidently engage I can’t see it happening.

In the meantime, they have some TREMENDOUS technology – go check it out.

Do you have experience of dealing with Autonomy you’d care to share? Questions? Suggestions? Please comment below!

Most would agree that driving inclusion in today’s internet age is not just desirable but a necessity. The question is how to broach most effectively an issue which is characterised by such a wide spectrum of challenges.

Last week saw the publication of the EU Digital Agenda, which aims to ‘deliver the benefits of the digital era’ to the populations of its member countries via a series of 16 key actions. The actions – for the main part timetabled to be completed over the course of the next four years – include a number of items we typically see bracketed under a ‘digital inclusion’ heading:

• boosting internet trust and security
• guaranteeing the provision of much faster internet access (the agenda fails to allude to those presently excluded through reason of not having any broadband access at all…)
• enhancing digital literacy, skills and inclusion

Measures tabled also include
• applying ICT to address social challenges such as climate change, rising healthcare costs and the ageing population.

Making computing an engaging pasttime for all...

At the same time, Britain’s ‘Digital Champion’, Martha Lane Fox, has set in motion Race Online 2012, a nationwide programme which challenges organisations and individuals working in partnership to get an incremental 10 million people using the internet by the 2012 London Olympics. As of 2009 some 70% of UK households had internet access. An estimated 10 million UK citizens are currently not online, and of these, some 4 million are socially excluded – the elderly, those in poverty, people with special access needs, and those disenfranchised for ethnical and cultural reasons. Many are simply out of high-speed broadband reach, such as those in remote rural locations. Of course there are many who are in denial and remain unengaged by choice – but is this a genuine unwillingness to accept change, or a side-effect of ignorance or fear? I am minded of my father-in-law who at 80 feels it is too late to bother with the confusing world of computers, but will happily and regularly wait for page after page of teletext to scroll through to get to the ‘online’ information he seeks.

What’s your opinion on the priorities we face in securing a digitally inclusive Britain? Is it pursuing a supporting infrastructure with affordable high-speed access for all? What about local and community internet provision including human support, guidance and interaction? Usable, straightforward and highly accessible online environments that encourage uptake and involvement? Improved internet trust, security and education? Or something else? Where should Digital Britain be focussing and coordinating its effort?

Please vote and comment below!

Sharing a bench and cigars, as all good alliance reps do ...

So go on then, what do you call them, these interdependent company relationships? For a start, is someone who manages the relationship between two businesses a ‘Partner Manager’ or an ‘Alliance Manager’? Does it even matter? When is a partnership not a partnership but an alliance? In my opinion an alliance sounds somehow more weighty than a partnership. When we talk about allying ourselves we are often in the context of war or political relations. We are thinking of entities standing shoulder to shoulder in battle, with common strategic purpose. The Allies with a capital ‘A’.

Obligatory dictionary definition:

al·li·ance (-lns)

1. A close association of nations or other groups, formed to advance common interests or causes

Pasted from <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/alliance>

I’ve given some thought to the types of partnership which companies typically engage in (and more on this in a later post). Often there will be a broad mix of types – partnerships are formed to fulfill various needs and permit the pursuit of incremental, sometimes even tangential opportunities. I’ve identified four dimensions of partnership and they serve subtly different purposes. They are: vertical; horizontal; geographical; and strategic, or practice partnerships. These latter are the ones which I would classify as approaching true alliances.

So, first of all, think about the strategy of YOUR business, and whether it follows vertical, horizontal, or geographical lines. Where does your growth ambition lie? How could it help you to buddy up with other businesses to create supplementary value for you and for your customers and clients?

Now, check out these partner types:

Vertical or industry partnerships

• Partnerships which support an organisation’s vertical strategy, e.g. An educational software vendor teaming with Capita who provide services into the UK education sector.
• Provide context, depth (enrichment of proposition), market expertise, intelligence for the relevant sector, e.g. Open Text partnering with Causeway to create document management systems specific to the construction industry.

Horizontal  partnerships

• Complement the generic expertise of the company
• Extend functionality of a company’s solution areas
• Provide services, support, solutions to improve margins/increase differentiation
• Often the main thrust  of channel and competency programmes

Geographical partnerships

• May exist to enhance coverage, capability and credibility in specific geographies

Strategic/practice partnerships –> true alliances

• The strategic fourth dimension of partnering.
• Operation of a delivery practice related to one or a few specific partner vendors e.g. ‘our Cisco practice’.
• Operation of a major strategic and multi-threaded alliance between two product vendors e.g. Microsoft and HP; Open Text and SAP.
• Operation of a major strategic alliance or alliance practice between a vendor and partner type, e.g. Oracle’s IBM Global Services relationship, or IBM’s Managed Service Provider practice.
• Requires managing as a profit centre or major managed account in its own right.

Ideally, partnerships should be planned and provisioned to align with all dimensions of a company’s core strategy; to strengthen their vertical context, to support their horizontal (capability) needs, their geographical coverage requirements, and to reflect a dedicated practice or centre of technology  excellence, too. All sizes of company can consider their spread of partnerships in this way.

Whether it’s a practice-based partnership or not, here’s a set of indicators that would imply to me that a relationship has grown into something more meaningful (everybody say awww…):

• Regular senior executive (C- level) sponsorship and involvement
• Strategic alignment and mutual significance
• Longevity
• Significant investment in the relationship on both sides – in R and D, marketing, sales, team-building
• Bilateral flow of technical knowledge – partners have the ability to influence each others’ product (or service) roadmap
• Dedicated relationship management staff, structures and processes
• Proven ability to resolve conflicts
• Receives proper marketing gravitas and prominence – e.g. the relationship merits dedicated web space on the partner site, joint collateral created
• Joint references and revenue achievement on both sides

Ultimately it’s up to you in your business to choose your own naming convention. It’s a matter of internal company culture to define whether you classify the companies you cooperate with as ‘partners’ or ‘alliances’ or indeed simply ‘suppliers’ or  ‘the channel’ . Later, we’ll look at the topic of internal and inter-company culture as a facet of partnerships, including more on terminology and the notion of an  ‘ideal partner’. I’ll also be telling you why I squirm when people talk about the ‘value chain’. Partnerships are far too multilateral to exist in a chain. Value has many tentacles.

So, reader…. how does this work for you in your organisation, is there accepted delineation between ‘channel partners’ and ‘alliances’? Very interested to hear your comments.

In the previous post I alluded to a London digital agency who didn’t see the potential in developing technology partnerships. I won’t bang on about it, but anyone still unclear why web design and creative agencies need technology relationships just as much as any other IT solutions company could do worse than watch this …

AKQA give testimonial to their Microsoft partnership

Strongly recommended viewing: I came across this showcase video from last year’s Microsoft WPC partner awards, featuring a testimonial from AKQA, winners in the Digital Agency of the Year category. In the video, AKQA explain why building and sustaining a partnership with Microsoft is important to them and their clients, and they give particular reference to their ability to incorporate Microsoft PhotoSynth and DeepZoom technology in fulfilling their creative brief to clients. Amazing stuff.

Coming soon to Seven Cs of Partnering:

• interview with Microsoft’s Michael McClary on the tech giant’s agile approach to partnering with the digital agency world;
• interviews with client and customer organisations who tell us just why, in their view, alliances and partnerships between delivery partners and technology providers are vital to the success of their online, mobile and IT strategies and projects.

I’ve been to a few London events in past weeks which have cast a spotlight on the strength of the UK digital market. In March, Microsoft held a UK Digital Agencies showcase, where we heard thought-provoking blue-sky ideas from MS labs, then saw examples of some of the cool applications that British agencies have created for global clients, using online, social and digital media,  mobile and other interfaces (such as Microsoft surface technology) . Last month I joined the lively beer- and sausage-fuelled crowd at The Fantastic Tavern, a popular event hosted periodically by EMC Consulting but focussed squarely on thought leadership in the digital arena and avoiding product pitches of any kind. The theme for the evening was ‘Realities’ – with emphasis on the ‘Augmented’ variety – you can read about it here in Simon Gallagher’s excellent blog.

Justin Cooke, BIMA

The third event was the relaunch party for the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA), at which Chairman Justin Cooke spoke of the expansion plans for the Association in collaboration with other leading UK societies and forums, government sponsors and the  private sector (technology and commercial), which will ultimately put Great Britain at the heart of worldwide digital skills and innovation . Very exciting times ahead – and more of that in a later post. It was while at this event that I had a brief conversation with the owner of a London-based creative web agency who asked what I do, and then expressed confusion as to what partnering could mean for a company like his.

“We don’t need to partner with technology companies,” he pronounced.” Our business is to deliver great campaigns for our clients. We can make what they need from scratch using .net, flash, silverlight, php… In fact the technology is only a tiny component of what we offer. It’s commodity. Why would we want to waste time with suppliers? We’ve got Adobe writing about our implementations without us even lifting a finger!”

If only I had the gene for raising one eyebrow. The conversation and indeed my conversee moved on, but it left me thinking… Technology partnerships have a long and productive history in IT and the interdependence between vendors and their channel is well established; but in Agency-land, the home of the movers and shakers of web and mobile, many of the ‘hot’ outfits derive from the marketing, design and creative world. Here, technology partnering can seem an alien concept.  Perhaps this is because those with their roots in design possess an overriding pride in independence; or a creative competitiveness which precludes buddying up with, well, anyone really. Maybe it’s a quirky arrogance?

Nevertheless, I realised, there are indubitably some instances when, as a digital agency, you simply don’t need to look at partnering as part of your growth or survival strategy.

For instance, you needn’t consider partnering if…

1. … You never use proprietary technologies and always build everything from your own libraries or from scratch, or through integrating Open Source tech.
2. … You have no urge to participate directly in technical innovation by trialling new betas, engaging in  customer proof-of-concept and feeding back requests for enhancement to product companies
3. … You always go it alone and don’t need to hook up with anyone else to defend your business
4. … You have no interest in incrementing your revenue with resale margins or referral fees (pure margin)
5. … Your clients are not influenced by product salespeople, never ask for your informed opinion on a product, never do their own meaningful research or request your involvement or cooperation with product companies
6. … You are quite happy to forego lead generation by product vendors
7. … Your staff are able to get all the training they need from free web sources; or you are satisfied with paying full whack on third party training courses.
8. … You are content to let vendors give your solutions PR exposure and take the risk it may not be on message and is at their whim
9. … You do not have responsibility for supporting any third party product and aren’t too fussed about having a fast-track escalation path to vendors’ support services and executive.
10. … You absolve yourself of performance issues on your client’s website. Your agreement stops at the point of delivery. If the campaign is a roaring success and the site is overloaded, user experience takes a nosedive, online transactions go awry and your clients’ end-users kick off a riot on social media and in the press, it is someone else’s problem (phew!).
11. … You ignore all product vendors that approach your company, so don’t have to waste time evaluating or qualifying them as useful or otherwise.
12. … You don’t mind your competitors being given a platform to showcase their work to customers at vendor events and flagship industry shows
13. … You are never going to deliver a mobile campaign requiring quality of service, fat applications or rich media over a wide variety of handsets.
14. … You have a sideline designing and manufacturing your own innovative delivery devices, touchscreens etc so never need access to someone else’s hardware SDK.
15. … You never need to accommodate premium content which requires digital rights protection from an approved vendor programme such as Microsoft PlayReady.
16. … Your staff are so clever they can build the kind of solutions to complex requirements which proprietary companies have spent years investing in R and D to achieve, or which start-ups have fought hard for venture capital in order to prove in the marketplace.
17. … Your clients do not have preferred product platforms they require you to integrate to or optimize for.
18. … You are willing to qualify out of opportunities which exceed your capabilities but which you could have otherwise pitched for by teaming with a larger or differently specialised service provider or product company.

If all of the above apply, then having a strategy for partnerships is almost certainly something your design or digital agency business should ignore. All the very best on your creative island. You may be there some time while the rest of the digital world cruises to broader horizons.