Importance of Alliances- United Nations University Survey

We all love statistics and even more so when other people conduct them for us.

So the United Nations University MERIT conducted a survey that resulted in 75% of companies believing that strategic alliances were of very high importance for the realization of their company's strategy.

Further most companies expected contribution of alliances to the value of the company to increase from an average of 19% today to 47% in 5 year's time.

So why is this so important and how can this apply to your company. Well strategic alliances will:

• Create greater value for customers
• Leverage new sources of innovation
• Enter new markets or lines of business
• Establish new revenue streams
• Reduce costs or harness economies of scale
• Share risks and rewards in new ventures

That's great so how do I find these alliances that fit? Well it takes dedication and time to finding the right partners as it relates to marketing, distribution, innovation, etc.

The first step is figuring out what you do best and what you need to move forward with the business. From there you can determine if internal innovation is best or if it makes more sense to utilize someone else's strong capabilities to achieve those results. My argument is why use your own resources to innovate something that is NOT your core business, when someone else is already doing it and probably achieving better results.

Dedicating an individual to these alliances and working internally throughout the organization will help to best understand the needs. If you don't want a full time employee or department dedicated to this because of the high overhead cost, having an outside agency or freelancer might be a better option. They will bring other networks and knowledge from other companies to help determine partners as well as provide an outside view of the places where the company needs to innovate.