How do we strengthen strategic partnerships? Are we maximizing the potential of our collaborations? How can we increase efficiency, reduce risks, and achieve a greater impact?
These are the questions you should be asking yourself about your alliances at least every six months.
Managing alliances is not just about the initial agreement but also about how it is executed daily. To ensure these partnerships generate value, you must evaluate their performance, adjust processes, and dynamically align strategies with your company’s objectives. Let’s dive into the details.
1. Assess the Performance of Your Alliances
The first step in improving any partnership is understanding what has worked well and what hasn’t. To achieve this, consider:
- Gathering feedback from partners and internal stakeholders. Live conversations provide richer insights than surveys, allowing you to identify improvement opportunities and reinforce successful practices.
- Identifying exemplary collaboration instances. What strategies have driven success? These should be applied to future partnerships.
- Detecting recurring issues. Delays in deadlines and budgets, slow document review and approval cycles, and inefficient decision-making are obstacles that can be improved.
2. Optimize Communication and Trust
Clear and efficient communication is the foundation of any successful alliance. Some key questions to consider:
- Does communication work for all involved parties? Ensuring that each stakeholder has access to the necessary information at the right time is crucial.
- Are decision-making processes agile and effective? If approvals take too long, they can put project execution at risk.
- Are commitments being met? Trust is built through consistency—doing what you say and saying what you do.
Small incremental improvements can make a significant difference in the efficiency of collaboration.
3. Align Resources and Alliance Goals with Business Strategy
The first quarter is the ideal time to review resource allocation and ensure that strategic partnerships align with the company’s priorities. To achieve this:
- Ensure senior management understands and acknowledges the value of collaboration. Presenting key benefits and allocations to joint teams and governance committees early in the year can facilitate decision-making and optimize resources.
- Incorporate alliance-related responsibilities into annual objectives. Including performance metrics in individual and functional goals helps maintain focus on the effectiveness of partnerships.
- Prepare stakeholders to react quickly to opportunities and risks. Anticipating potential regulatory changes, operational challenges, or new synergies can make all the difference.
4. Use Technology as an Ally, But Simplify Processes
Technology can enhance data quality, security, and efficiency, but it must be applied strategically. Consider the following questions:
- How can technology optimize alliance management? Document management tools, real-time communication platforms, and tracking systems can improve coordination.
- Are processes simple enough? Technology is only effective if business processes are well-defined. Automating unnecessarily complex workflows can be counterproductive.
Alliances in 2025
Defining clear goals aligned with business strategy and a long-term vision will ensure that partnerships become a growth driver rather than an operational obstacle.
If your company needs to strengthen its partnerships, we are here to help and unlock new opportunities.
