Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from May, 2011

8 Ways to Turn Partnerships into Profits

Every potential partnership has two customers and every successful partnership delights them both. Very few companies have the resources and know-how to successfully produce products and also distribute them. While this constraint weighs most heavily on cash strapped start-ups, even a behemoth like  Microsoft   MSFT +0.11% sells through distributors and Heinz relies on Kroger to pump out its best-selling ketchup. In a marketplace gone global, productive partnerships are more crucial than ever. Partnering has become so critical that the word “coopetition” had to be coined to describe companies that partner in some areas while competing in others. Yet very few partnerships ever deliver on their symbiotic promise. Why? The single biggest mistake we make in our partnership efforts is selling potential partners as if they were end users. While the interests of partners and end-users must overlap they are seldom if ever identical Back in the 1980s, Data Broadcasting Corporatio