Building Partnerships

Why Partner with Others? Meaningful partnerships are the foundation for success. Partnerships is what enables many companies to make continuous improvements. By sharing with others, you can direct your resources and capabilities to projects you consider most important. The 80/20 Principle asserts that 80% of results come from 20% of effort. Thus, to achieve more with less, you must be selective, not exhaustive. In every important sphere, work out where 20% of effort can lead to 80% of returns. Strive for excellence in the few key areas, rather than for good performance in many. Focus your firm's resources on what you do best and what creates sustainable competitive advantage and tap to the resources of others for the rest. To decide why, when and how to partner with others for complementary resources, weight the small amount of cost savings that doing non-core-competence tasks might bring against the distraction and investment that will be required to stay up to date over time. Synergy Synergy is the power behind business partnerships. In a business partnership, two parties leverage their assets (resources, capabilities, expertise, client base etc.) for the mutual benefit of both... More Growing Role of Partnerships in the New Economy In the new knowledge economy, the principles of business strategy are being transformed. Instead of a focus on physical assets and economies of scale, the drivers of success reside in connectivity and intangibles. Businesses increasingly need to develop and manage complex ecologies or organizations around themselves so as to succeed. The selection of strategic partners with whom to collaborate is now becoming a life or death issue for most firms.7 Barriers between companies, which used to be solid and absolute, are now permeable. "Iconoclasm and creativity are now the keys to success", writes Mark Stevens.1 "For generations companies built moats between themselves and their competitors. Today the most successful companies build bridges. And that's only the beginning". Increasingly corporate leaders must adopt, practice, and orchestrate what appears to be conflicting policies, such as joint-venturing with competitors. In today's new world, the competitive pressure has been intensifying, it is becoming harder to achieve leadership and stay on top, and, thus, competitor in one market may establish alliances in another. Acquisitions of and mergers with competitors have also become a common practice. "More and more, those who can examine the code, challenge it, and rewrite it for success in their companies, fields, and industries will be the leaders and role models. Strategic Alliances In the new economy, strategic alliances enable business to gain competitive advantage through access to a partner's resources, including markets, technologies, capital and people. Teaming up with other adds complementary resources and capabilities, enabling participants to grow and expand more quickly and efficiently. Especially fast-growing companies rely heavily on alliances to extend their technical and

operational resources. In the process, they save time and boost productivity by not having to develop their own, from scratch. They are thus freed to concentrate on innovation and their core business. Joint Ventures Joint ventures involve sharing the risks and rewards in an enterprise or project co-owned and operated for mutual benefit by two or more business partners. There are good business and accounting reasons to create joint venture with a company that has complementary resources, skills or assets, such as distribution channels, technology, or finance Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Although the quest for cost savings inspired initial forays into offshore outsourcing, companies are now using offshore delivery to achieve significant improvements in business performance - transforming outsourcing from a tactical and technical point solution to a long-term business strategy for creating and defending competitive advantage. The decision makers are looking to leverage global sourcing to gain long-term process optimization, business-oriented measurements, and enhanced control over IT assets and activities Extended Enterprise: Virtual Integration Through virtual integration, the walls between enterprises crumble. Companies stop being self-contained business units that produce products or services, and become integral elements in a larger system. In the new world of virtual integration, no matter who signs the check, all the people are working together for a common cause. Vertical integration performs, virtual integration innovates Steve Jobs' 12 Rules of Success 12. Learn from customers, competitors and partners. If you partner with someone whom you don't like, learn to like them praise them and benefit from them The Seven Dimensions of Strategic Innovation The Strategic Innovation framework weaves together seven dimensions to produce a range of outcomes that drive growth. Core Technologies and Competencies is the set of internal capabilities, organizational competencies and assets that could potentially be leveraged to deliver value to customers, including technologies, intellectual property, brand equity and strategic relationships Customer Partnership "Customer partnership is a shared journey to create a future for both parties that is better than either could have developed alone."3 The customer is the foundation of your organization's success. In today's turbulent times of rapid and chaotic change, "no force is more grounding and stabilizing than a partnership with customers Creating a partnership with customers will help your organizations maintain the focus you need to make good decisions and harness the power and commitment you need to weather volatile times. Customer partnership is more than "putting customers first", or finding mutually satisfactory solutions to shared problems, or a dedication to excellence in every sale or service encounter. It also requires commitment to forging long-term relationships that create synergies of knowledge, security, and adaptability for both parties. New Employer-Employee Partnership

Today, people are your firm's most precious and underutilized resource. They are your firm's repository of knowledge and they are central to your company's competitive advantage. Well coached, and highly motivated people are critical to the development and execution of strategies, especially in today's faster-paced, more perplexing world, where top management alone can no longer assure your firm's competitiveness. A successful people partnership is a coherent set of people systems and processes that reflect the business environment, the enterprise strategy, and organizational values. Each one will be unique to an organization and its employees, but there are some key principles that are common to all the companies that are exploring the New People Partnerships.