Due to the economic climate, we have unfortunately seen too many layoffs, hiring freezes, tightened budgets, and a whole lot of uncertainty. The mammoth tech company layoffs are what you see in the news – that of Microsoft and Google. In reality, many more companies and people are being impacted by inflation, including small and medium-sized enterprises and startups.
Many companies may have too much confidence, thinking all aspects of their business can be accomplished independently. However, this has rarely been the case in my many years in business, specifically in the software industry. Business owners must understand the power of collaboration to stay ahead of the curve and avoid major obstacles down the road.
Organizations will have to show resilience to overcome the circumstances impacting their business.
A great place to start is to rely on your partners, network, and foster business relationships to help manage tasks, add more knowledge and skills, and ease the financial burden.
When it comes to any business, companies often need to ask themselves, “what is our product aiming to achieve, and what pain points is it trying to solve?” Most know that this is also referred to as an organization’s mission statement. Answering this question is critical in many aspects, including deciding where you need support from your partner network.
This article outlines the popular reasons and areas companies leverage partnerships to keep innovating and ensure longevity.
Managing Tedious Tasks and Projects
So many different areas need to be managed in a corporate setting. Those areas, of course, differentiate from company to company.
For example, customer service is a significant area where partners are utilized. Customer service is crucial to every business because customers can be lost or retained based on quality. Without the need to hire a full-time department, outsourcing or partnering with a customer service team allows quicker problem-solving. As a much-needed part of the business, leaders cannot just forget about it because they don’t have the resources. It does not matter how established of a brand you are; loyalty will diminish if people are not getting helped promptly and accurately.
With external customer or technical support, customer engagement typically rises, and multilingual support offerings can allow your business to help more people.
Onboarding and hiring are other examples where businesses turn to partnerships, assuming they are not in a full-on hiring freeze. Combing through candidates and setting up initial screenings is a tedious task. Leaning on staffing agencies to bring you the most qualified people for the job is a significant way to keep the current workforce focused on more pressing projects.
Adding More Knowledge and Skills to the Business
Identifying strengths and weaknesses is where businesses need to begin their conversation surrounding the formation of a partnership.
In the world of software and industries-alike, you see various partnerships for reselling. For example, software companies, car companies, etc., may need to add sales expertise in a strategic alliance. Value-added resellers and other outside sales firms open the doors to a new world of opportunities. While you remain focused on delivering partners with an excellent product, they can highlight to their network why the product is right for them and close deals to benefit both organizations.
Combining intelligent and helpful salespeople with a magnificent product boosts customer satisfaction – helping retain them and leading them to speak positively about your brand.
Noticing a knowledge or skills gap and doing nothing could be detrimental to businesses, especially in a rough economy. On top of sales, a wide range of services and partnerships are worth exploring. Are you a food & beverage company with a deficit in your HR operations? There are many excellent firms to form a relationship with to help optimize HR processes. Bringing in a brand-new set of skills and knowledge to help where you are lacking defines a strategic partnership and promotes sustainable operations.
Easing Financial Burden
The goal of everything discussed is to keep your company healthy and profitable during periods of inflation. That said, reducing headcount is the first way companies can save money. Long-lasting and successful partnerships are built on a foundation of trust and helping one another. While you save on hiring costs, your partner gains your business. It is important to note that hiring an employee or a team in other economic climates may be the correct business decision moving forward.
When a partner brings you into their network and introduces your product to a new customer base, your ability to win a deal boosts tremendously. You get a percentage of the deal by providing the product, and your partner receives a percentage by doing all the sales duties. A sale that would have never happened without each other helped both parties up their revenue.
The same aspects related to working out a personal issue with someone you know or operating collectively as a team in sports apply to business; it just looks slightly different.
Trey Norman serves as COO for the Mindbreeze Corporation and Vice President of Sales for North America. He studied Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M a University with a specialization in Digital Signal Processing. Trey is dedicated to helping customers uncover new insights in their data with the help of his team of machine learning and insight engine specialists. LinkedIn,
Partnerships stock image by maradon 333/Shutterstock
