Starbucks is no stranger to the value of strategic alliances, and their move into India further illustrates strategic alliances are in the boardroom when market growth is planned.
http://goo.gl/Jp4WJ

I think you can boil down most of the issues we face in alliance management to “scarcity mentality”. Folks with scarcity mentality view life (and alliances) as a zero sum game. If you win, I lose. If I win, you lose.

Those who view the world from this perspective, have a very hard time collaborating. Viewing partnerships from this prism causes their mindset to be very self focused and “shrinks” their universe. Their “pie” is small, and their life is a constant battle to win turf, presumably at the expense of someone else. It’s hard to think creatively about options and fresh new approaches when crouched in the fighting stance ready for battle!

The best cultural mindset for positive partnering and collaboration is an “abundance” mindset. You can always tell when you are dealing with a partner with this mentality. The possibilities are limitless. Collaboration with them is about making the pie bigger, not fighting over pieces of a small pie.

Let’s do all we can as alliance managers to promote this mindset in our organizations – and be sure that we walk in this mindset ourselves.

In our previous blog we discussed challenges with executing and managing MDF programs. One component of the management challenge is the communication of available programs and the dissemination of the information to your partners. So, how can you effectively communicate with your partner…

According to Wikipedia “The Bermuda Triangle is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and ships allegedly disappeared under mysterious circumstances.


The “Alliance Bermuda Triangle” is typically where partners wind up when attempting “triangulation” – the pursuit of that elusive holy grail resulting from the coming together of 3 companies.


It typically goes like this….. you’re working with a partner on an initiative, and he mentions, “hey, we have a partnership with Acme Technologies, we should loop them in to our discussions.  There’s typically lots of enthusiasm in the beginning after a series of exploratory discussions…Lots of IGBG – “it’s gonna be great” and then….. nothing.


Why? Because getting alignment between two companies is challenging enough. Adding a third to the mix increases the complexity (and risk) by an order of magnitude.


I’m not saying it can’t work… I’ve seen a few. Just know what you’re getting into, ask a lot of questions and set expectations all around.

A great post at Pandodaily I meant to reblog here. http://pandodaily.com/2012/02/11/why-oracle-may-really-be-doomed-this-time/

Aimed at Oracle, relevant for many or all large software enterprises and their enterprise customers.

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