Strategic Alliance Marketing Agreements and JV Planning for US - Canada Corporate and Small Business
Five Steps to Market Dominance Using Strategic Alliances |
Use Business Planning Software With Strategic Alliance Agreements and Joint Venture Marketing Plans Built InWe arrange strategic alliance agreements and joint ventures for businesses on both sides of the US - Canadian border. Outside activities of each strategic alliance partner are not affected by a joint venture or strategic alliance agreement. Good strategic marketing alliances depend on choosing the right JV partners or strategic alliance partners anywhere in North America or on other continents. We help build strategic alliance agreements and cross border joint ventures between companies that have a common marketing goal or a shared customer. A strategic alliance agreement or joint venture does not interfere with the regular independent activities of the participating companies. Of course, how you build strategic alliance agreements will depend on the partners involved, but if you're tired of adversarial business relationships, it may be time to look at a new way of conducting business. When you build strategic alliance agreements properly, they can empower everyone involved to be more productive and more profitable. If the pain of where you are is greater than the perceived pain of the unknown, you might be ready to try a couple of strategic alliance agreements as a component of your marketing plan. Business Planning With Strategic Alliance Agreements And Joint Venture MarketingA strategic alliance is an agreement between two or more firms to engage in an activity on a shared basis. The outside activities of each partner are not affected by the strategic alliance, which is designed to build on the expertise of each member and the way in which they complement each other. Strategic alliances are generally less formal than joint ventures and not as encompassing and may often be designed to last for a limited time. Partnering is an idea that is loosely used to describe anything from teamwork to strategic alliances to contractual partnerships. As we define it, it is the process of two or more entities coming together for the purpose of creating synergistic solutions to their mutual challenges. Strategic Alliance recommends that you adopt strategic alliance agreements as a key part of your overall business strategy. The benefits are numerous, yet the strategic alliance path is not without its own set of obstacles and surprises. Creating a strategic alliance agreement is not meant to be a flavor-of-the-month management strategy to be hastily adopted and then as quickly abandoned. It is a rather long term paradigm for success. How To Set Up Strategic Alliance AgreementsPlanning the Structure of a Strategic Alliance AgreementBefore you enter into a strategic alliance agreement, the terms should be outlined in a formal document that sets out what each party expects to bring to the strategic alliance. The agreement can take either of two formats. The one you agree upon will most likely depend on the size of the companies involved, how long youve both been operating, and the types of products or services being offered through the strategic alliance agreement.
No matter which type of strategic alliance agreement suits your situation, it should include:
A tightly defined strategic alliance agreement may also:
Just because you build a strategic alliance doesn't guarantee you instant gratification! To adopt partnering through strategic alliance agreements as your overall management strategy, you'll need to understand the Strategic Alliance Pentacle. A pentacle is simply the name given to a group of five. The Strategic Alliance Pentacle represents the five key areas of every business, the areas in which to begin developing your partnering belief and activities. There are several five elements of strategic alliance agreements. Let's take a look at them now. 1. Planning Strategic Alliance Marketing Agreements With SynergyIf you build strategic alliance agreements that are synergistic, they will involve outside entities for activities where you have core weaknesses that you want to strengthen and to cut costs. These could include: R&D, manufacturing, purchasing, advertising, marketing, distribution, employee sharing and other variables. By sharing your core strengths with others and theirs with you, both sides can create an environment of synergy, with each partner yielding more than the sum total of their collective contributions. Be cautious and watchful for differences in the core values of strategic alliance members, or perhaps not having enough in common, or too much change among the management of any of the strategic alliance partners. 2. Planning Strategic Alliance Marketing Agreements With SuppliersStrategic alliance agreements with suppliers is an area that is becoming very popular recently. For companies desiring just-in-time manufacturing (JIT) and electronic data interchange (EDI) ordering and inventory control, partnering is an absolute prerequisite. You often hear suppliers say things about their customers such as, "They're talking marriage but acting like it's a one night stand." Whether you are a retailer, distributor, or manufacturer, to succeed and prosper you need to start developing long-term relationships with those companies with whom you're dealing. The biggest challenge in this area is to avoid getting mixed up in a strategic alliance agreement with an outfit that talks about quality, timely delivery, and reliability then focuses totally on price issues. Remember, there is today's price but there is also the overall cost, which is usually lower if you're involved in long-term partnering relationships. 3. Planning Strategic Alliance Marketing Agreements With CustomersStrategic alliance agreements with customers is the one area of your business where you must be outward driven. Your customers will buy from you as long as they feel they're receiving good value for the dollars they give you. Value-added is a term about which much is being written. You must be customer/market driven, rather than product driven, to understand what your customers want and what they perceive as the value being added to your products and services. Depending on your industry, it costs 5 times to 8 times as much to get a new customer as it does to keep a loyal customer coming back for more. The potential disaster zone to watch out for here is short-term thinking on your part when making customer satisfaction decisions. 4. Strategic Alliances Agreements With EmployeesStrategic alliance agreements with employees are generally a non-issue for many businesses, meaning that they don't understand the importance of investing in the people who do the bulk of the work in their organization. What motivated the WWII generation was vastly different from what motivates baby boomers, which in turn is different from what motivates today's youth. Just because something motivates you doesn't necessarily mean it will motivate those of a different generation than yours. If you want your employees to have psychological ownership in your business (even though they don't have a legal ownership) and to respect the guiding principles of the business the way you do, you must empower them. Empowering means giving them the authority and encouraging them to accept the responsibility to do their assigned duties. Then acknowledge their successes and failures in an environment of safety, where you encourage and reward risk-taking (risk as opposed to gamble). Risk is based on knowledge and good chance of potential return -- educated guessing -- as opposed to a gamble, which is a longshot with very little chance of winning. The major potentially explosive area to watch out for is the Ego Trap, and we're talking here about you. To give power, you must be a powerful person -- one who possesses personal power rather than power simply acquired from your position. 5. Strategic Alliances Agreements With OwnersStrategic alliance agreements with owners and executives comprise the final and perhaps the most important part of the pentacle. It's not the most important from the perspective that it all revolves around you, but that of having a culture of true partnering. Belief must start at the top. You must lead the charge and show by words and actions that the paradigm of partneringthrough strategic alliance agreements is truly your preferred and accepted business strategy. The critical danger here is when top brass arrogantly believes that they are at the center of the pentacle and that everything and everyone should revolve around them. The coveted center is reserved for the relationships that bind the partnering pentacle and your organization as a viable entity serving society and receiving profits as the result. For today's cutting-edge business leaders, partnering through strategic alliance agreements is the prevailing answer. The Strategic Alliance Partnering Pentacle will enable businesses of any size to access the benefits generated by pooling their knowledge and experience. Strategic alliance agreements can be the answer if you're willing to adopt the paradigm of collaboration for mutual success! Challenge yourself to put into action the paradigm of strategic alliance agreements as your management and marketing strategy. Nicholas Copernicus, the father of modern astronomy, in the first decade of the sixteenth century A.D. wrote a paper stating, contrary to conventional wisdom, that the earth was not the center of the universe, but rather that it rotated around the Sun. For this he was rewarded with a 500-year excommunication by the Church. What price are you willing to pay for progress? Want to lo learn more about building strategic alliance agreements? [That's editor at strategic-alliance.com] Try this free sample strategic business planning software for your marketing plan ideas. |
|
|
|