Alliance Management – Why Technology Matters
“Just give us the right tools to succeed…”
Strategic alliances, and the professionals who manage them, are the proverbial “shoemaker’s children” and have been dramatically underserved when it comes to technology. Technology enablement options purpose-built for the alliance industry are few and far between and often focus on lower-value alliance activities (trade shows, collateral, etc.) versus the strategic and programmatic requirements that are at the core of every mission-critical alliance.
It’s no wonder that more than 50% of strategic alliances don’t succeed. Trying to meet these complex requirements by stitching together legacy technology (spreadsheets, presentations and sticky notes) is a recipe for failure!
So, you ask, why is technology so important to the success of Strategic Alliances and Partnerships?
Alliances have a number of unique needs that can only be met with a purpose-built integrated digital solution:
Alliance partners need a shared, highly secure platform where they can engage, collaborate and innovate
The value proposition (e.g.; vision, business case, KPIs) underlying the alliance has to be transparent and accessible to stakeholders from both partners
A joint opportunity and deals pipeline is needed to enable the partners’ sales teams to find and work deals together
A strategic alliance, at its core, is a major program requiring automated and enforced project management disciplines (e.g.; risks, issues, actions, approval and escalation workflows)
A number of alliance-centric activities such as financial and non-financial contributions, funding requests / disbursements and innovation ideas need to be tracked and managed
Alliance partners’ Senior Executives need a high-fidelity (and trusted) source for reports, dashboards and Business Reviews
Ok, the requirements are complex and there aren’t a lot of technology options available, but haven’t we limped through it in the past?
Well yes, we’ve limped along, although at a pretty abysmal success rate, and now COVID 19 is further exposing the weaknesses of the current state of alliance technology.
Prior to the pandemic, alliances attempted to overcome technology limitations by “brute force”; face-to-face meetings and workshops, bringing executives and alliance team members together in Quarterly Business Reviews (QBR), and lots of phone calls and emails. With the current travel restrictions and the new and evolving remote reality, this approach is no longer an option.
The good news is, as evidenced by the alliance failure rate, the brute force model didn’t work very well anyway, so inevitably, we had to evolve. Face-to-face meetings are costly and difficult to schedule and the QBR is an ineffective, expensive and antiquated relic (seriously, what executive wants to wait 3 months for an update on a strategic business relationship)?
We are all pretty much in agreement that the alliance industry is in dire need of better technology…so, what are the characteristics of the “right” alliance management tool?
At a minimum, an alliance management solution should:
Be housed in a robust and secure cloud ecosystem where the partners can be comfortable engaging and collaborating
Have built-in collaboration tools like chat, document management, in line commenting, etc.
Facilitate the development of the alliance business case and establishment of key performance indicators (KPIs)
Be able to “ingest” the partners’ alliance-related deals and opportunities so the sales and alliance teams can work them together
Have automated program management disciplines including risks, issues and action items management as well as approval and escalation workflows
Be a high-fidelity, and trusted source for alliance reports, dashboards and business reviews
So, here’s what I hope you got from our Blog today:
The alliance industry has been dramatically underserved from a technology perspective
Alliances have unique and complex technology requirements
Legacy technologies (spreadsheets and presentations) just aren’t cutting it and are one of the reasons for high alliance failure rates
The pandemic is making it more difficult for alliances to succeed
A purpose-built, integrated digital solution for alliance management is needed to significantly improve the success rates of strategic alliances
For more details or questions please contact me at bobjones@collabtogrow.com or visit our website.