How to have Alliances and manage them too

As the concept of Alliance Management for company expansion, innovation etc. becomes more widely accepted, there is a natural challenge with finding sufficient resources to get involved with them. There are ways to transfer employees to new responsibilities, or hire new employees. But what if you can't afford to take that step right away?

Issues

• Your company has limited resources, devoted to its core assignment.
• Your culture is one of creativity, rapid innovation, entrepreneurial activity
• You have no internal experience with longer term processes, such as product development, product management, Alliance development and management
• You want to control Alliance success at the CEO level, but can't devote time to day-to-day management

Opportunities

• Alliances can be used to expand the company beyond its current target market/product line by making use of expertise and capacity developed in partner companies
  • Product development
  • Engaging with target customer segment
  • Marketing new products
• Corporate investment at more advantages terms
• Access to network of supporting resources
• Access to experience in complementary areas

Risks

• Company does not have experience with Alliances in general and specifically how to manage their execution
• Company does not have experience interacting with markets other than its 'home market'
• Company does not have resources to develop a foreign market on its own

Our Recommended Approach

• Invest in training and advisory services to educate the executive team before making strategic decisions
• Contract with an Alliance Management 'service provider' to take on specific project management responsibilities
• Develop long term Alliance capability implementation plan, with 'Interim Management' component to get started.
• Evaluate the use of a service provider/consultant with an ROI perspective: investment in fees vs. revenue generated as result of the successful project implementation