Partnering with another business can be an excellent strategy. It fills in gaps in your business’s resources and uses your strengths to benefit another business with similar goals, values, and customers to yours. Here are some of the most important things to know about how strategic partnerships can benefit your business. Learn how to choose just the right business to partner with and how to make sure that your strategic partnership is as mutually beneficial as possible!
Benefits of Forming Strategic Partnerships
Strategic partnerships provide a variety of benefits for both businesses, often by combining each business’s strongest and weakest areas. Here are some of the most beneficial reasons to consider forming a strategic partnership with another business in your industry!
Access to New Markets
Even the best businesses have limited target audiences. Partnering with a business that complements your own can be a helpful strategy for finding more potential customers that your business is likely to be a good fit for. Partnering with the right business can also be an ideal solution if you are considering expanding the products or services you offer. If you’re unsure where to start or lack the resources, expertise, or reputation, it can be daunting to expand on your own. That’s where strategic partnerships come in handy.
More Resources
Many businesses do not have the most ideal combination of types and amounts of resources that would best set them up for success. Forming a strategic partnership with a like-minded business can boost the total resources that each business has access to. Choosing a business that has an abundance of resources that you are most in need of can support both businesses’ quests to secure exactly what they need. Also, being able to make better use of resources that your business has more than you need of can help move past roadblocks and toward your goals.
Shared Expertise
Likewise, nearly all businesses have gaps in the areas in which they have renowned experts on their teams. Partnering with a successful business in one of your weaker areas can give your team access to valuable information. It’s like sharing resources but focused on specific expertise. Because the goal of a strong strategic partnership is for both businesses to benefit equally, doing plenty of research is key when it comes to finding a business that can also benefit from your expertise in one or more of your team’s strongest areas as an ideal candidate to partner with.
Tips for Identifying and Cultivating Strategic Partnerships
Choosing just the right business to form a strategic partnership with is a must. It ensures that it has enough to offer your business and is genuinely interested in mutually supporting your business. And it reduces the risk of wanting to partner with another business for potentially damaging reasons. Some helpful tips for narrowing down your options, choosing the business you are most interested in reaching out to, and developing your partnership in the coming months and years include:
- Considering businesses in your industry with similar goals and values to yours
- Considering businesses that already have similar clients and target audiences to your own
- Building an in-depth understanding of everything the business you would like to form a strategic partnership with is about
- Crafting an exceptionally targeted pitch that clearly communicates to the business you want to partner with what you can offer them and how you aim to benefit from the partnership.
- Considering any other strategic partnerships the business already has and how you may also be able to work with them
- Being willing to incorporate the other business’s ideas and contribute more than they ask for to ensure that your business is holding up your end of the partnership
Examples of Successful Strategic Partnerships
Many major companies have successful strategic partnerships with at least one other organisation because they recognise the value of sharing ideas and resources. Some examples of well-known companies that are involved in strategic partnerships include:
- Apple Pay and Mastercard
- Chevrolet and Disney
- Starbucks and Target
- Spotify and Uber
Choose Oracle Tree to Grow Your Business
At Oracle Tree, we are here to help your small business take steps to grow by incorporating a wide range of innovative ideas. If you are considering forming a strategic partnership with another business, our team can help you consider your options. We can also assist in crafting a strong proposal that captures the other business’s attention. We’re here to help make the most mutually beneficial decisions throughout the process. Contact us today to learn more about the benefits of growing your business through a strategic partnership or to get started!
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