Maidsfield Blog - Partnering and Business Development

I had an interesting discussion with a long-time fellow traveller in the Irish tech scene yesterday. When my first business was 4 years old, we were his first customer to get him started. This business competes in a commodity service space against very large competitors. The reason I bought from him then is still the same reason when the company is selling its offerings today; that is ‘trust’ in the level of service and reliability.

So how does a small company internationalise commodity service and beat the big boys?

Two areas to think about:

1) Sectors Specialists
In a small geographical market, specialising on specific industry sectors may not provide enough market to sustain and grow your business, so you provide your services to many sectors within your region. When going international, unless you’re a big brand with deep pockets you need to focus on specific sectors and understand the key business issues in those sectors and how this relates to the service you provide. Being able to provide some specific features and knowledge that shows your specialist focus will make you stand out and beat generalist players.

2) Partner for Market Access and In-market Capability
Seek the type of partner that makes sense for your business. In reviewing the customer journey of what you sell from Gaining Awareness to Customer Support, what elements are imperative that you should keep and what elements can a partner provide with in-market credibility?

In my friend’s example, we discussed him seeking partnerships that bring proven relationships with his target customer base that can bring his business qualified leads and even assist in the delivery and support. The prime supplier-customer relationship will need to be retained.

In a bizarre mix of partner roles Referral and Support Partner responsibilities were discussed. Of course a referral partner network could be established with a separate support partner network could be progressed also.

Bottom line, partner according to what you need across your entire customer journey.

talk soon, Donagh Kiernan, www.maidsfield.com

When you are selling something that asks a company to change how it does things, it adds a complexity to the sale. Depending on the depth of the change required, the buyer has to involve more people in the buying decision.

In forging Strategic Partnerships, change is expected on many fronts from both companies. The promise of joining forces is evaluated and the joint opportunity sometimes requires much investment in time and money to make it happen.

When you are selling a product that fits well with a company’s existing product portfolio then less change is asked for and a faster decision can be expected. For example a client company has a product for Enterprise Systems Data Migration that works well with the large ERP and CRM systems such as Oracle and SAP. An ideal partner fit here are the System Integrator companies that implement Oracle and SAP Enterprise Systems.

The tactical part is that we are not asking them to change their business to resell our product. We are selling a product that fits in with their existing business process. This means that the sales people can understand and explain it, the implementation team can see how it can ease their burden or reduce their costs and the CEO of the company can deliver a more effective service or make greater margin on their business.

A comparison between Strategic Partners and Tactical Partners like Resellers or System Integrators:

The estimated times here depend on so many items and none more prominent that the market opportunity you are meeting or responding to. The more immediate the opportunity, the faster the Time to Revenue and the faster you start making a return.

Another item is cultural fit - How fast can the relationship develop for the companies to start working together? This takes longer for Middle East and Far East companies where relationships develop slower and look to the more longer term.

There is more to consider here, but thats for another day.