How to start a relationship?

I know it has been a long time but suddenly after 2 years if you get a comment on one of your posts, you feel motivated. Motivated to share what you know. So, here I am writing my experience about how to start a relationship?

Now this is not a personal one. We are talking business. And when we do so, I guess we should be serious. Serious enough to find the right partner. First of all identify the areas in which a partner is to be made. It might be finance, technology, supply chain, marketing, anything but ensure that you identify the right areas where you feel you need a partner.

Once, that is done identify list of possible partners within that area. It could be a very rough list which could be then evaluated on the basis of a partner selection criteria. Yes, this is quite important. Have a partner selection criteria. This criteria could be tailored according to your requirements. It will have factors like company financials, company ownership, customers, etc. Give some rating to these criteria and on the basis of the final ratings make a short list.

Now comes the interesting part. Once you have idenfitifed the short list approach these companies. Contact their marketing departments or try and get in touch with the senior management. Ensure that you have your partner proposal ready. Yes, you need a proposal to ensure that it is profitable to be a partner with you.

Start proposing these companies and make as many as you could. Been a professional relationship, you need to ensure that you follow two more additional steps. The proposal acceptance should be followed by a thorough contracting process. Involve your legal team to ensure that you have the right contracts. My experience says that if everything goes fine than no problems but for that one thing which goes wrong, either you or your partner will look at the contract and hence it is very important to give attention to detail.

Last but not the least and the most important thing to do is come up with a business plan along with your partner. Any relationship could be fruitful if there is commitment. Hence commit your resources towards the relationship. Draw a proper business plan which has clear action items for both of you. Once this is done, just action your action items and get tbe ball rolling!!!

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Stakeholders involved in partner relationship management!

Many stakeholders will be involved while deploying and using partner relationship management. I have thought of some and you can add more...

Alliance Program management team - Will help in deploying the PRM application. Set the expectations upfront on the framework, guidelines and policies for managing alliance relationship within the organization

Alliance teams - Users of PRM application. Day to day use of the application once it is successfully deployed. Review and governance of alliance. Will also help in upgrading the application and the initial deployment

Sales teams - Users of PRM application. Interact with the alliance teams and the partner organizations to share leads and update the status of current leads

Partner organization - User os PRM application. Will help in initial deployment, and continuous review and governance of the alliance.

Top management - Users of PRM. Review status of alliances and decision making

Solution or product teams - Users of PRM. In order to get inputs as to what kind of solutions to be build, resources to be trained, etc.


Thank you for visiting my blog and if you have still not posted your comments, request you to spare a few minutes and give your suggestins and opinions!!!

Introduction to Partner Relationship Management

Partner Relationship Management, most commonly known as PRM is a re-emerging field. It is an application to manage partner relationships. It includes modules from identifying and selecting partners, forming alliance relationship, managing alliance relationship, lead generation, solution development, training, governance of alliances and terminating alliance relationships.

If one is working in IT field, partner relationship is necessary term. Still customers think that it is a luxury and this will take time to sink in that it is a necessary investment. Considering that PRM has long term returns in terms of direct numbers but the immediate benefits can be better relationsihp with the partner and improved future visibility.

Having said this, the questions still remains that how many companies will actually invest in this kind of application...




Thank you for visiting my blog and if you have still not posted your comments, request you to spare a few minutes and give your suggestins and opinions!!!