Together Everyone Achieves More - with a constellation of alliances

In moving forward with your vision and strategy you need the strength of global Alliances to reinforce your message, and to compete effectively. The competition is rarely just another company. As Benjamin Gomes-Casseres, author of The Alliance Revolution (Harvard University Press) put it, the real competition is often a constellation of competitors TEAMing thus Together Everyone Achieves More !

In order to compete more effective a major objective of your alliance program should be to work more closely with the partners. Systems Integrators, complementary product partners, implementors, consultants etc often see deal flow which is incremental to yours. They also tend to team up with friends to the exclusion of companies perceived as threats. "If yur not with us, yur agin us!" holds true in the real world.

The 5 F's General Framework I have used successfully with a number of software ventures is a hybrid of Ben's approach ( which can be found on www.alliancestrategy.com ) and what works from my own experiences and observations of my competitors approaches :

1. Focused (strategy before structure) - It is the strategy and the existing relationships (both friendly and competitive) which matter most in guiding partner choice, - then, partner choice and your mutual goals that guide the structure of the deal. The sequence is important. Companies that have followed this lesson are usually alot more successful in alliances than those who have rushed out to "sign up some partners" without thinking it through. Also, you need to create an organizational process that incorporates evaluating alliances as an option. Alliances will work for some things but not for others. You need infrastructure for tracking progress with alliances. To be successful, you need to be focused and proactive in evolving an alliance strategy. Joint goals will help drive effective investment of resources for all parties. As Ben says "Execute alliance strategies, don’t develop strategic alliances."
2. Fast (quick progress before perfection) - Execute! Strategy without execution is hallucination. If your expectations are reasonable they will often be fulfilled. The key is to grab opportunities for change and not ignore them, but to do something about them. Then fine tune with the wisdom of experience. Alliances are a way for you to quickly manage incompleteness in either your products, services, domain expertise and or market coverage. They help react quicker and often more credibly to competitive threats or market opportunities by TEAMing (Together Everyone Achieves More.)
3. Flexible (agility before compliance) - The only constant is change itself. Hanging loose in the relationship is key initially. Strategy should evolve from an assessment of your external competitive environment, your internal capabilities and resource availability, your appetite for balancing the investment/risk/reward formula and your mutually desired goals. Then, you can develop tighter tactics and policies. Some alliances may center on rounding out gaps in your product suite. Some will involve making “connections” with those surrounding the point of decision such as Systems Integrators (such as IBM, or Accenture etc.) Infrastructure Players may be important to you, or Players who can help expand your solution footprint, General Contractor & Reseller Players as well as other types of players on a pragmatic basis. You also need to stay close to developments within your market such as what is happening today with RFID mandates and directives coming from the DOD, Wal-Mart, Target and the FDA etc.
4. Families (constellations rule) - As Sun Tzu's said: "He whose ranks are united in purpose will be victorious." A variation on Together Everyone Achieves More – TEAMing. Create portfolios of alliances, not stand-alones – the competition isn’t just the company you sell against; it’s usually the group of companies who have chosen to TEAM. Now if your rivals don’t "get it", and you do, you jump to the lead position much quicker. Like in all families, the ones with good relationships work better. Nothing is more wasteful of time than setting up hand shakes, and press release ware with Alliances which do not result in additional business in some form. You need to focus on those relationships, which will result in mutual market expansion and additional real revenue business for all parties - then you need to build trusting relationships with the people involved to earn the right to work together.
5. Forget the past (don't let the past constrain your thinking or creativity - strategy can make the future happen.) - Do not assume that because your competition is in alliance with a company, that there is nothing you can do. Just the opposite. Look for opportunities to reducing the effectiveness of your competitors evolving alliance constellations. One of Sun Tzu's first moves in war was: "Disrupt the enemies alliances." Use preemption in some cases to get a corner on a market. Change the rules in another situation or even change the game so as to reduce their alliance's effectiveness. Offer more value by becoming your partner.

Without executive involvement and committment as well as a supportive internal infrastructure, the alliance strategy will usually fail, no matter how well thought out. Keep in mind that many companies bungle up this part of the business and if you get it right it can be a tremendous competitive advantage for you.