I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends!

Has teaming up with another business ever crossed your mind? You may think you’re better off alone but a strategic alliance with another business is a great way for small businesses to really expand their reach. It’s an opportunity for like-minded businesses to help each other by offering or recommending services to customers who you know would benefit from the help of another business. Done correctly it’s great for both businesses involved in the strategic alliance, as it helps grow revenue and increase customer base. It’s a ‘win-win’ situation and having this attitude towards it is what really defines the success of a strategic alliance.

What can a strategic alliance do for your business?

I have found strategic alliances to be very beneficial over the years. For example, Pathway has a strategic alliance with a number of Accountants which is great for both sides. Both businesses work with small business owners which need and we refer them to one another, each gaining a bigger client base and more recommendations.

Your business may use a strategic alliance to:

• Share resources and information. Your businesses may be in the same field but you are likely to have expertise in different areas. Both businesses will grow stronger through sharing knowledge and learning from one another.
• Increase access to innovation and new technology. Another business may introduce you to a tool that totally changes how your business functions, which you may never have discovered without them.
• Reduce competition. By joining forces with a like-minded business, you will not only immediately lose them as a direct competitor, but you will also be creating a competitive advantage over other similar businesses by the pooling of both businesses’ resources and skills.

How do you know who to form a strategic alliance with, and how can you ensure success?

It can be difficult to let new people into your business world after doing things in a certain way for however long. How do you know who to trust? If you’re thinking about linking up with another business, check out these tips:

Select your partners carefully

Look for peers who are like-minded and share your ethics. You can make contacts in many places; at networking events, online groups or social networking, and even with or via your Advisers: Business Coach, Bank Manager, Solicitor, or Accountant.

Be clear about your expectations and desired outcome

Identify the kind of alliance you want and of course it needs to be a win-win. Can you both commit equally to the project? It would be wise to negotiate a formal contractual arrangement for further peace of mind.

Keep communicating

You will need to stay in regular contact to maintain a strong and successful alliance. Many business relationships fail because of faulty assumptions and poor communication. Make sure all communications are documented and don’t just assume your partner understands everything without explanation and rationale.

Set specific timelines

Set trial timeframes to get an idea of your partner’s work ethic, management style, attention to detail, and true commitment. It’s important to test the waters before fully committing.

And if things do go wrong…

Be sure to establish an exit clause when setting up an alliance. Decide upfront on an exit strategy that will suit you both should the alliance fail. Don’t be afraid to brainstorm possible best and worst case scenarios.

So do your research to make sure it’s the right strategy for your business, and target a strategic and motivated alliance partner. It may be tough but the benefits for your business, and your partner’s business, could be endless. By sharing resources, costs and risks, your strategic alliance may catapult your growth in a way you might never achieve on your own.

Kindly provide your views and comments and kindly connect via twitter: @SafarazAli

Regards,

Safaraz

p.s if there are any experts on refining and further developing and sourcing Strat Als then please contact me.

But I want to bring us back into reality and bring the word back into everyday use in the workplace. The definition that is promoted above is too narrow and frankly it stifles innovation as a result. If all that our people are trying to achieve is Dyson-level improvements, we’re going to have a lot of disappointment all round.

I would look to put forward the following acronym of SIRII (not to be confused with Apple Siri!). SIRII stands for “Small Improvements Regularly is Innovation“.

SIRII is important for introducing change and improvements such as Kaizen, the Japanese concept but again another word that most people in business cannot easily relate to. SIRII encourages us to take 80% of an existing idea and tackle the 20% of it – but regularly.

If we stay where we are, we go backwards. Just as inflation erodes our savings, being static erodes our offering. But we don’t need to invent the next big thing to keep moving forwards.

We should ask ourselves:

• How can we make our process better?
• How can we improve the workflow?
• Where is the improvement in our documentation?
• Where is the improvement in our business? /What can I improve on?

Practically, how can we do this? Michael Dell’s Diary of Issues is a functional way of making this steady progress. Keep a note of anything- big or small – that raises a concern in your mind. From the annoyance of not having access rights to accounts to do your job, to a key member of staff being absent who is needed to authorise decisions, a diary of issues is important in the process of SIRII.

Innovation is your small business making improvements every day. Don’t dismiss small issues, don’t settle for incorporating them into your working day. Many of them may never be solved, but simply by being conscious of them, our brains can begin the process of solving them.

Safaraz

p.s Kindly provide your views and comments and if you would like to read my future posts then please kindly connect via twitter: @SafarazAli