How to formulate and use your Leverage

You are the only company that can do what you do. But there are other things that go with good business management that you don't know how to do. What you need is 'a few good friends' to help you get to where you need to be: making money in your target customer segment.

In essence, the following are the crucial aspects to keep on the radar while implementing a workable evaluation process:

Issues

Your company has:

• A unique product or service
• Funding limitations that mean you need to focus on your innovation
• A clear idea of the potential business application(s) of your innovation
• Knowledge of organizations with complementary products or services

If this applies to you and your company, here are some things to consider:

Opportunities

• Create synergistic products from the perspective of the customer
• Allow partner companies to concentrate on their core strength
• Enhance ROI on overall product sales through efficient use of internal and partner resources

Risks

• The relationship is not developed and managed properly, fails before benefit is realized
• The partnership objectives are not clear or not complementary and therefor cannot be reached through cooperation
• The partner company responsible for collecting revenue on your behalf is dishonest about the distribution
• The partner company uses the relationship to obtain access to your knowledge for its own use.

Our Recommended Approach

• Formulate your objective(s) for the relationship before engaging in discussion
• Develop a clear understanding of the type of leverage you need to obtain for YOUR company's success: Know your own strengths and weaknesses
• Write the scenario of the success story that leads to the perfect Partnership result.
• Be serious about due diligence: use it for your own education, instead of answering questions because the partnership candidate company makes you go through it.