Moderator: Simon Cocker, Simon Cocker Consultancy
Expert: Tim Waterlow – Affinia Partners
Key headlines
- The consumer is vitally important – therefore fit and alignment between partners is critical
- Businesses cannot be brilliant at everything they do. Therefore setting up collaborative partnerships are the way forward.
- You need to decide where you want to be an expert – as a manufacturer or distributor - and allocate your resources appropriately. Then align yourself with organisations whose strenghts are your weaknesses.
- When building a successful partnerhship, it is important to make sure you understand your own risk appetite.
- Partnerships need to be at the core of strategic thinking in organisations.
- It is important to have a robust partner selection process and then overall governance regime.
- If your brand is poor use the brand and distribution reach of your partner.
Key partnership success criteria include:
- You must have the right level of resource to manage your relationships effectively.
- It is important to have a forgiveness mentality when running partnerships. Not everything goes to plan and therefore not holding the partner constantly to account, waving the contract, is important for long term relationships.
- However if the partnership is not working or is dwindling, it is important both parties face up to this and agree a mutual, orderly exit.
- Find the sweet spots to work together and then craft a compelling partnership proposition.
- It's like a marriage – there will be ups and downs. But effective, consistent communication between the parties is vital.
- Have frequent, open and honest engagement.
- Have a robust partnership framework in pace.
- Understand each other’s business and where there may be coming from.
- When entering a partnership it is important to be fully aware of any risks as well as the benefits.
- When building a successful partnership, retaining consumers with new propositions is just as vital as generating additional income.
