Joint-Venture Strategic Alliance Partners
Keys to Win/Win Partners
Knowing the long-term value of having a joint venture between two separate entities is an important step that you should strongly consider at the beginning of the joint-venture process.
All too often, when two parties get together, many times one party is not really aware of what the other party is doing to make the joint venture between the two parties successful.
What you might want to consider is there are certain parameters you influence and your actions on the front end will impact the overall outcome of the joint venture relationship with selected partners.
Five important events to consider and analyze are:
First and foremost, make sure you have a contract or mutually agreed upon understanding that binds you with the joint-venture partner and ties in specific goals and objectives that are related to the joint venture, itself.
Secondly, make sure that each party knows what the correct strategy is, how the strategy will work and also define each others' roles, your responsibilities and set some timelines that will help you in the process.
Sometimes partners will use Microsoft Project or other project-management software applications to help with the overall strategy.
Project management applications are important when coordinating international joint ventures that involve groups of strategic alliance partners, timelines and milestones.
Thirdly, make sure that you interact a lot on the front end of the joint venture. Once a joint venture is implemented and people become engaged, you want to make sure that there's a lot of dialogue between both parties and that the back-and-forth transmission of information and knowledge is really set forth from the get-go.
Fourth, the key is to have formal expectations. If you can set expectations on the front end of the joint venture and have more of the divide-and-conquer approach, you'll find that the joint venture works a lot easier when expectations are defined well in advance.
Fifth, what you're going to want to avoid is the "what if" syndrome. You don't want people asking "what if?" or "why?" You want to be able to define it, and what that presents is "management by exception."
Management by exception is helpful. When done correctly it helps both parties clearly identify their roles and responsibilities, and only deal with the exceptions, so keep that in mind.
Also know that during your first joint venture, you're probably going to make a few mistakes. But by getting things down on paper and having a formal plan written, you'll find that the joint-venture process is really easy between two parties when they team up together.
And also very importantly, take the time to get everything in writing.
