A business alliance is a formal association of two or more business parties to further their common interests, presumably over the long term. As such, these alliances can take many forms with varying degrees of complexity and difficulty. In its simplest form, an alliance can be described as a buy/sell arrangement. On a more complex level, a long term relationship and alliance may result from an effort to co-develop or share technology, or possibly from a technology licensing agreement. Even more complex are partnerships or joint ventures especially when the global aspect of business is introduced, and especially if the parties to the alliance are from different countries and different cultures.

Before attempting to form an alliance, you need to make sure that you are familiar with the steps. Preparing in advance is like practicing the dance steps before your first dance. It will help you avoid possible mistakes, and perhaps stepping on someone else’s toes. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most important things to remember when doing a joint venture with someone is that you are creating an alliance. You are creating a business relationship that has a friendship brewing underneath. Joint Ventures explode your sales and are the fastest way to grow your business, this is all true. Yet, the most important thing you can do is keep that business relationship on the level.

Your intention during the joint venture process will determine whether you will become a popular person or company to do a joint venture with or will be tossed aside for a business alliance that has a stronger level of honesty and relationship. You must become the partner you would like to attract for a JV relationship and alliance.

Becoming the kind of partner you would like to work and deal with, someone that is solution oriented, honest, a possibility thinker with a serving others attitude. When you begin building your joint venture alliances you are building a network of business partners that will either be open to doing a joint venture with your or will be polite and brush you off. Which do you want? Read the rest of this entry »

Recent news concerning IT industry strategic alliances increasingly trumpets the
word “unique” as in ‘unique alliance’ or ‘unique partnership’. Usually these unique
arrangements bring together a marketer (either a system integrator or a service
provider) with a solid footprint in a niche market and a technology developer or
manufacturer with an innovative or proprietary capability.

This type of alliance transfers to the marketer a unique technological edge. The
marketer’s objective in many such cases is to keep competitors at bay, grow market
share or create enough performance value to justify a higher price. For the
developer partner, aligning with the marketer provides a significantly extended
market reach that simply translates into the sale of an increased number of units as
well as a branding leap into greater market visibility. Read the rest of this entry »