Strategic Alliance Magazine Winter 2017 - 19

Reimagining Partnering
Companies must reimagine the ways they partner and
realize value through these collaborations. Business models are increasingly based on consumption or outcomes,
not ownership. Services and information are built into
products. Customers who are "always on" as individual
consumers expect similar experiences as business buyers-and as partners. We want interactions under our
control and accessible across all channels of engagement.
New competitors emerge every day from unseen quarters.
Startups embracing new business models such as Airbnb,
Etsy, Skill Share, or Stitch Fix, play by different rules than
those expected of established businesses-just as was the
case during the turn-of-the-century dot.com frenzy. At the
same time, companies such as Cisco, GE, GM, IBM, Intel,
and others that are forging ahead, building their own innovative business models, don't get the leeway given to the
disrupters by the financial markets. Less nimble incumbents struggle to shift their businesses from legacy cash
cows to emerging new models. Some will-many will not.
In this environment, companies partner for many reasons
and increasingly in ways that blur the lines of traditional
industries and test new business models. For example, by
partnering with software providers and next-generation
transportation/technology companies such as Über and
Lyft, automobile manufacturers are embracing a business
model based on access, not ownership, which is completely
contrary to their existing business model. Business accelerators, incubators, and corporate venturing provide ways
to partner with startups to gain early access to emerging
technologies that could be game changers-and which the
"bigco" doesn't have either the time or talent to develop.
Partnership models necessarily range the gamut. Some
are loose and barely collaborative, where just a little bit of
coordination and exchange of information are required.
Others are very tightly coupled, where all types of resources are leveraged and used for a common purpose.
Increasingly, getting a complex product or solution to a
customer requires many partners that must be coordinated through and within an ecosystem. A different network
or instancing of partners may be required for each geography or distinct customer situation.

Even accounting standards are changing. Beginning in
2017, publicly traded companies must conform to new
revenue recognition standards that in many instances
will accelerate when revenue is recognized, but may also
spread out the timeframe over which the total revenue
from a deal is recorded. The implications remain to be
seen as customers increasingly require complex solutions
comprised of many components, provided by many partners. Certainly, alliance professionals building bundled,
turnkey solutions using outcomes-based pricing will
need to engage their finance and legal teams early in the
process. The old partnering models simply don't apply-
on so many levels!

Five Design Principles for PartneringEverywhere Capability
When we say "partner everywhere," we refer to the thoroughness or pervasiveness aspect of "everywhere." It is a
purposeful phrase to describe the nature of partnering activity in business and society today. Partnering-by which
we mean external relationships that require an exchange of
value other than just money-is indeed everywhere in an
organization, from end to end and top to bottom. Research
and development, engineering, manufacturing, IT, marketing, sales-all functions have external partners. The
speed, scale, and scope of partnering are unprecedented.
Partnering is ubiquitous.
The capability your company needs to partner everywhere
is a function of how much it is externally oriented. Does
your company choose to lead or otherwise orchestrate its
prime ecosystem, or just focus on the get-to-market or goto-market component? The more prominent a company's
external leadership position, the stronger its capability
needs to be.
We've identified five design principles for a partnering-everywhere capability. These principles help your
company address the trends driving digital business
transformation, position it to succeed, and avoid being
one of those companies John Chambers warns will be
left behind by the disruption of digital business transformation.
Q1 * 2017 | STRATEGIC ALLIANCE MAGAZINE

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine Winter 2017