Category: Partnerships & Collaboration

Collaborate To Innovate – Don’t Just Cannibalise

A very interesting article in HBR, Vicki Gardner highlights recent research from Nielsen showing that most of what is deemed marketing innovation actually just cannibalized existing products and market shares – and that genuine innovation should come from collaboration. As Gardner says; ” Regarding innovation, the numbers indicate that the vast majority of innovation also results in splitting the pie vs. growing the pie — and in some cases, innovation inadvertently shrinks the pie”.

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Partnerships That Every Small Business Can Build

Smart and cost effective partnership marketing tactics are not just for large brands – small businesses can benefit from them too.

Partnerships and alliances are good for business. Big business has always known this — from McDonald’s building global co-promotions with Coca-Cola and Walt Disney, to Nike building trainers that talk to your iPhone. But alliances can bring significant benefits for small firms too – something I discuss in this article within MarketingDonut. In the article I outline the four main partnership tactics that small businesses can use; (1) Revenue Partners (2) Supplier Partners, (3) Industry Alliances and (4) Promotional and PR. These are the kind of marketing programmes that are used by some of the world’s biggest brands – because they’re cost effective and work. So if they’re not already doing so, isn’t it time small businesses started to build these approaches into their plans too? For more information on partnership tips and advice see Benchstone.co.uk

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Solutions For Small Business Partnership No-No’s

As an advocate in partnership marketing it’s just as important for me to point out that not all partnership and collaborative offers are good ones – and that sometimes it is best solution is to walk away from the deal.  As an old boss once wisely told me ‘do not fall in love with the deal’ – but keep a clear idea of what you really want from the relationship. In an interesting piece published in Business Insider in 2010, Venture Capitalist Don Rainey pointed out that small businesses need to just say no to certain partnership deals. I agree with Rainey up to a point but I think some of the ‘no-no’s’  he points out can be overcome with a sharper partnership approach too.

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Feeling The Squeeze – Time To Get Out More?

Marketers need to power up the radar, can the horizones and hone their ‘collaborative’ streak and realise, as some of the best brands in the world have, that the future is all about ‘partner or perish’ (to quote Xerox). Brands cannot go it alone they need to find collaborative allies.

In a recent article published in Marketing Society the editor of ‘Market Leader’ – Judie Lannon commented that marketers are getting ‘squeezed’ – as aspects of their role fall increasingly within the domain of others. She’s right of course – they’re getting squeezed. And to get away from the internal squeeze – marketers need to get out and engage and collaborate more. (You can see the original article and comments here. )

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‘Partnering Is A Matter Of Smarts’ – Says Judith Hurwitz, HBR

Hewlett Packard grew its business using powerful partnerships with Intel (chips) , Oracle (databases) and Cisco (networking) – but as Judith Hurwitz points out in a recent article published in Harvard Business Review (HBR) –  it now needs to revisit and reinvigorate these key relationships to regain its innovative edge.

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Content: It’s All A Little Bit More Complicated Now

The digital technologies have changed the world of entertainment licensing and its all a little bit more complicated now.

Its often a little bit more complicated...

Last week I was lucky enough to spend an evening being entertained by scientific stats, facts and wonders presented by Professor Brian Cox, Simon Singh and Ben Goldacre on their Uncaged Monkeys Tour. Whilst at times the science both baffled as well as entertained – one particular part of the show struck a chord: that the natural response of a good and rational scientist to people making sweeping statements, should always be along the lines of –  ‘things are a little bit more complicated than that‘.

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Partnership> Why It Is Not a Purchase Order

The term partnership can mean different things to different people and in many cases that makes sense but it should never just be about the purchase orders. This is a point that has been made very clear recently by Ben Gomes-Casseres. If the shared definition is not understood and agreed by the parties early on, it can frustrate and poison any chance of a long-term relationship – be it one based on sales, marketing collaboration or anything else.

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Chance Favours The Connected Mind: TED Video, Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson presents at TED 2010 on his great book; ‘Where Do Good Ideas Come From’

Those who have not had time to read Steven Johnson’s great book ‘Where Good Ideas Come From’ can catch his TED presentation from 2010 below. If you don’t know his work, Johnson explored how the most creative business and societal ideas evolved and the environments that best stimulate them. For marketers, who continually stress the importance of innovating this is worth a moment. A key finding is that ‘coffee house’ style collaboration, connection, relationship building  (i.e. partnerships) – and using existing resources is key to good ideas. As Johnson says ‘Chance favours the connected mind’ and connecting those ideas is more important than protecting them.

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Why Benchstone?

A bench stone is used to build and sharpen valuable blades and other important tools. Bench stones are specialist resources and some are even diamond coated. Over twenty years I have come to passionately believe that partnerships and alliances are vital and valuable marketing tools that when properly managed can give businesses a unique cutting edge  – creating an advantage that is difficult, expensive if not impossible for rivals to replicate. And Benchstone Marketing Limited is established to support senior management, brands and organisations plan, pioneer and sharpen their marketing partnerships.

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Trust & Marketing Partnerships: Part Two

Trust is always a vital but often enigmatic ingredient in collaborative business relationships. In Part One, I explored why, for some people, it is often their biological wiring that leads them to shy away from investing in a new relationship. In this follow-up piece, I am going to look at the commercial aspects of trust – and what you can do to encourage it within marketing partnerships.

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