Professional Business Consulting

This post is to answer a question we are commonly asked. All content on this post has been sourced by Wiki.

A business partner is a commercial entity with which another commercial entity has some form of alliance. This relationship may be a contractual, exclusive bond in which both entities commit not to ally with third parties. Alternatively, it may be a very loose arrangement designed largely to impress customers and competitors with the size of the network the business partners belong to.

Partnership formation

A business partner or alliance can be crucial for businesses. However, businesses can not choose business partners, called business mating, in any way they want. In many instances, the potential partner might not be interested in forming a business relationship. It is important that both sides of the agreement complement each other and have some common ground, for example in management style, mindset, and technology. If, for example, management style would be too different between the firms, then a partnership could be problematic. Kask and Linton (2013) investigate under what conditions business mating (formation) takes place for startup firms seeking business partners.^[1]

Differentiation

The meaning of the term is quite different from that implied in partnership, and it is because of the potential for confusion between the two that widespread use of ‘business partner’ has been discouraged at times in the past.

A business partner can be:

1. A supplier
2. A customer
3. A channel intermediary (such as an agent or reseller), or
4. A vendor of complementary offerings (for example, one party sells the hardware, while the other sells the software)

This is a wider definition than a business alliance.

Cohesion

One example of a business partnership is the “Agility Alliance” originated by Electronic Data Systems.^[2] Members of this IT-focused alliance include Microsoft, Oracle Corporation, Sun Microsystems and SAP. This highlights two problems with multi-party partnerships:

• Two of the companies may be partners with a third member of the partnership, but highly aggressive towards each other. (Oracle and SAP compete against each other in the ERP market.)
• One party may be partner to a second party when targeting one market, but competitive against that same company when targeting another market. (Microsoft may be happy to work with Sun when Sun is offering its servers, but far less happy when Sun is proposing OpenOffice.org, in contention with Microsoft Office.)

Business partner search

Business partner search or business matchmaking is the process/service of finding buyers/customers, distributors, licensees, and/or other business partners. This can be provided as a paid service by a commercial organization, or as a free service by the commercial section of a country’s embassy/consulate or an association of businesses in a particular area.

Customarily, commercial consideration of this service is a one time fee. The fee for this service depends on the business domain, the volume of business of both partners that will end up in a partnership relation as the end result of this service, etc.

Managing relationships with business partners

The collaborative relationships with business partners are oftentimes prone to certain inefficiencies, which are represented by misalignments of either incentives or efforts between the partners.^[3] Business actors thus employ various approaches to manage the business relationships and facilitate both cooperation and coordination. Two mostly used mechanisms are legal contracts and social norms (e.g., trust, prior relationships, or continuity of future collaboration).^[4][5]

References

1. ^ Kask and Linton (2013) Business mating: when start-ups get it right http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08276331.2013.876765#.U0UEcfl_t8F
2. ^ “Agility Alliance | HP Services”. Eds.com. Retrieved 2011-02-10.
3. ^ Gulati, Ranjay; Wohlgezogen, Franz; Zhelyazkov, Pavel (2012-06-01). “The Two Facets of Collaboration: Cooperation and Coordination in Strategic Alliances”. Academy of Management Annals. 6 (1): 531–583. doi:10.5465/19416520.2012.691646. ISSN 1941-6520.
4. ^ Poppo, Laura; Zenger, Todd (2002). “Do formal contracts and relational governance function as substitutes or complements?”. Strategic Management Journal. 23 (8): 707–725. doi:10.1002/smj.249. ISSN 1097-0266.
5. ^ Cao, Zhi; Lumineau, Fabrice (2015). “Revisiting the interplay between contractual and relational governance: A qualitative and meta-analytic investigation”. Journal of Operations Management. 33–34 (1): 15–42. doi:10.1016/j.jom.2014.09.009. ISSN 1873-1317.

A Weekly Series by Teresa Morrow

I’m Teresa Morrow, Founder of Key Business Partners, LLC and I work with authors, writers, speakers and coaches. As part of my job I read a lot of books. I am here to offer a weekly post about one that I am working with and one I have put on my reading list. The books will cover topics such as social media (Facebook & Twitter), organization, career building, networking, writing and self development and inspiration.

#DreamTweet

This week I would like to start off with a book I have read and working with entitled #DreamTweet by Joe Heuer, aka The Rock and Roll Guru published by ThinkAha books.

Last night while watching TV, I began to notice the commercials were predominately about the Winter Olympics. I watched and listened to the athletes as they talked about what it meant to them to be a part of this worldly event. The described how much dedication it took for them to reach this goal of a lifetime but they wouldn’t have it any other way because it was their DREAM. It was so important to them, that no matter what, it was the one thing they wanted to do it was a part of who they are as a human being.

Well, this is the kind of advice, tips and inspiration you will receive when you read, #DreamTweet by Joe Heuer.

Here are just a few of the wise words from Joe in #DreamTweet:

• Be specific in creating your dream. Clarity provides tremendous power. (pg 3)
• Find people who are living their dream and study them. (pg 19)
• You absolutely, positively gotta be the number one believer in your dream. No ifs, ands, or buts! (pg. 28)
• Fear is your dream’s adversary. The most effective technique for casting off your fears is to bathe them in the
  light of love. (pg. 49)
• Each day spend time imagining your dream in all its resplendent glory, while feeling the rush of positive emotion that accompanies it. (pg 74)

And Joe is a great role model for his kids because they had this to say about their dad:

“Our dad is the perfect person to write ‘DREAMtweet,’ since he’s living his own dream as the Rock and Roll Guru!” –Alex and Rachel Heuer

What else more can I say? So Rock on and live your dreams!

You can order your copy of download a copy of #DreamTweet at ThinkAha website.

Joe Heuer, is known worldwide as the Rock and Roll Guru (http://RockandRollGuru.com ). An entertaining speaker, author, and full-time rocker, he shares the nuggets of wisdom he has gleaned from Rock & Roll with professional audiences throughout this third rock from the sun.

He believes that in addition to being a groovy musical genre, rock and roll is a way of life that has served as his constant companion and inspiration. Joe has lived numerous dreams, including a stint as the youngest collegiate head basketball coach in the country… who never played the game.

He has written several books, some of which have actually been published. Recent titles include ‘The NEW Idiot-Proof Guide to Customer Loyalty’ and ‘The Rock and Roll Guide to Patient Loyalty.’ He also has several rock and roll books in the works.

His wife calls him an idiot savant for his uncanny recall of obscure rock and roll lyrics and trivia.

Good to Great

Now is time for me to showcase a book I have not read but it is on my reading list. This week my choice is Good to Great by Jim Collins.

When I picked up this book off my shelf, I happened to open the pages to the beginning of Chapter 6, subtitled The flywheel and the Doom Loop. There is a image there of a flywheel which portrays a timeline of buildup to breakthrough and discipline of people and action. But this is not what caught my eye. The saying, ” Revolution means turning the wheel”  by Igor Stavinsky did.

Sometimes, it does amaze me how things happen they way they do. I mean how pertinent that the page of Good to Great would up to that saying. It is so relevant to living your dream. You can not start living your dream unless you start somewhere living it. Change can not happen without action.

If each day you take a step toward your dream, you are one step closer at achieving it. But if you don’t do anything, you are still where you are right now-wishing and waiting for the dream to happen.

I look forward to reading this book because each of us can always strive to improve something in our lives.

Jim Collins is a student and teacher of enduring great companies — how they grow, how they attain superior performance, and how good companies can become great companies. Having invested over a decade of research into the topic, Jim has authored or co-authored four books, including the classic BUILT TO LAST, a fixture on the Business Week best seller list for more than six years, and has been translated into 29 languages. His work has been featured in Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Harvard Business Review, and Fast Company.

You can pick up your own copy of Good to Great on Amazon.