Choosing the Best Business Alliances

Today’s market is extremely competitive, increasing the need and the importance of forming the ideal business alliance. Alliances are formed for many reasons, including the need for increased cash, to come up with viable solutions for seemingly insurmountable problems, to stay abreast of new technological advances and the need to gain market shares, among others. Continue reading

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend: Why Defiance of Business Alliances Doesn’t Fly

My Enemy = My Friend-Leveraging and employing business alliances are more commonplace than ever before. The antiquated idiom of, “The enemy of my enemy, is also my friend,” doesn’t seem to carry any weight, especially considering today’s digital world.

More importantly, if we were to join the Twitter-verse, post, pin, snap and chat with social networking online, business may be left behind. Continue reading

The IoT Marketplace: Opportunities and Concerns

The Internet of Things, or IoT, is a term that describes the ever-growing world of connectivity between the internet and everyday objects. IoT generally refers to any object embedded with software, electronics, or sensors that have network connectivity. This marketplace is exploding. With this explosion arise opportunities and concerns.

Exploding IoT MarketplaceFor businesses, IoT offers a new horizon of technological support that facilitates opportunities to grow and creates challenges to overcome. Continue reading

How to Choose the Right Business Alliances

Though there are many exciting, new businesses to partner with, it’s easy and more profitable to choose the right one. Here’s how.

2014 was a great year for startups geared toward enhancing consumer convenience through mobile devices. In fact, consumer tech was the obvious business focus that startup founders seemed to take the most interest in. Continue reading

Not All Channels of Distribution are Created Equal, Some Are More Creative

No man is an island applies to the relationship between manufacturers and partners in their channels of distribution. Whether manufacturers choose wholesalers, distributors, value added resellers (VARS), agents, dealers, or retailers, they also need to consider that not all channels of distribution are created equal for their particular business objectives. Not only does a company need to choose the right distribution channels, but they need to know how to use them to get the most out of their product. A creative approach always comes in handy. Continue reading

How Business Alliances Help Startups Succeed

“8 out of 10 entrepreneurs who start businesses fail within the first 18 months. A whopping 80% crash and burn.” According to Entrepreneur there is only one thing you need to succeed as a startup, so don’t panic. “Your startup can still succeed. But it will depend on one thing and one thing only. Customers.”

However, developing your product, bringing it to market, finding customers, and keeping Continue reading

Strategic Planning Must Include Important Strategic Alliances

A business’ growth to a higher level is often a perilous journey. From a start-up’s  first unsteady step into the business arena, through each acquisition and investment that follows, risks surround those bold enough to take on the challenges.

The foundation of the company is built on skills, capital, an idea and a vision. Often the starting team has some form of expertise in manufacturing, procurement, marketing, engineering or design. Continue reading

Helpful Tips To Maintain Strategic Alliances

In the business world, strategic alliances are vital towards success, but only if they are well maintained. On-going maintenance is critical; otherwise you end up with an alliance that hurts you, your business ally and your customers. However, with four simple steps you create an alliance that produces optimal results. Continue reading

Collaboration Improves Business Growth

There is an element of business that is completely competitive, but there is more to it than that. For the most part, people think of business as a dog eat dog environment, but there are some moments when it is better to work with other businesses through collaboration.

Always Be Mindful Of What You Say

Based on the fact that so many people Continue reading

3 Tips to Follow for Business Collaboration

Collaboration is a powerful tool in business. Many times your organization can collaborate with another business to produce amazing results that otherwise would not have been obtained. We will discuss 3 tips to follow when collaborating with another business:

Tip One: Open Communication is king. To be successful Continue reading

Why Most Small Businesses Need Power Partners

There are many commercials on TV and on the radio these days that say to call in and tell them about your invention idea. It sounds so easy, yet so campy and shifty at the same time. You’ve decided to market your own product. You’ve invested your own money, (and possibly a little of someone else’s if you’ve been lucky). However, you know deep down that you might not have what it takes to insure the success of this business. It’s the same feeling that made you even listen to that campy, shifty commercial in the first place. You know you need help, but you don’t know where to look or how to get it.

Help for Small Businesses with Good Ideas Continue reading

How Joint Ventures Can be Beneficial for Entrepreneurs

While joint ventures (JVs) can be a good strategic move for all businesses, they are particularly beneficial for entrepreneurs. A business may enter a joint venture if they are entering a new market place or geographical region. A joint venture will help take it to a new plateau.

The relationship between joint ventures and entrepreneurs is much different. An entrepreneur typically starts out with an innovative idea, Continue reading

Should Your Next Business Partner Be Your Rival?

Although many businesses focus on outperforming competitors by taking advantage of their competitive advantages, many would actually benefit by forming a strategic alliance and turning their competitor into their business partner. While it may not be the most conventional approach, businesses have figured out that in some situations it’s better to focus on growing the entire market, rather than fight for the largest market share of a small market.

A recent Harvard Business Review article discusses why this strategy has emerged Continue reading

Use The Power of Strategic Alliances To Grow Your Business

In today’s volatile economy, businesses large and small must take advantage of every opportunity to lessen risks and make their bottom line. One tool is strategic alliances. Many businesses, big and small, have entered into these beneficial partnerships to share resources and expand brand awareness without sacrificing additional capital.

Strategic alliances can be beneficial to all parties involved. Continue reading

Collaboration: The Best Idea for 2013

Business tends to be competitive – like sports. Not that competition is wrong. However, in the words of Michael Jordan, “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”

One of the best trends that we see for 2013 is collaboration. You want to promote your business, brand, product, or service, determine whom you can make a power partner or where you can develop a strategic alliance.

In the 2008 report from IBM, Continue reading

Sales Strategies Heading into 2013

Sometimes it’s difficult not to think of those who work in sales as anything more than the slick late night used car sales people from days gone by. However, much has changed over the last 30 years, especially when it comes to sales strategies.

Heading into 2013 it’s critical for your sales team to understand what factors Continue reading

Entrepreneurs Leading With Ideas

Many people think that being business entrepreneurs means you have a new exciting product to offer the world. That may be true in some cases but not in all. The dictionary defines an entrepreneur as a person who organizes and manages a business usually with considerable unique ideas, initiative and risk. Today’s entrepreneur thinks outside of the box. More and more business is becoming global. It is often the idea that is central to success. It is the idea about an old product that often launches a great business.

You do not have to invent a new mousetrap to become the king of pest control. If you have an idea on how to do it better, provide great service and make your customers happy then you are a potentially successful entrepreneur. You just have to take action. Continue reading

Solid Sales Processes is Critical

Sales is a very tough gig. When most people think of sales, they imagine someone who has a “silver tongue” or who is simply good at slick talking people. To be honest, that is not an accurate assumption of what it takes to be successful.

Many business owners leave the future of their business in the hands of their sales staff without really knowing how to train them or what to look for in qualified candidates during the hiring process. So what happens is they end up hiring someone who ends up costing them money rather than making them money? Continue reading

Several Reasons Why You Need Business Alliances

As a business owner, you should always be looking for a way to increase your bottom line. There are different strategies claiming they can help you increase your business, but one that is often overlooked is forming business alliances. This term might be complete Greek to you, so here’s a quick breakdown of what it is. Continue reading

Successful Entrepreneurs Become Successful Business Partners

There’s an interesting story about the partnering of the ice cream giant, Baskin-Robbins.

According to a post in Entrepreneur, Burton Baskin and Irvine Robbins each began their ice cream stores as separate companies at the advice of Robbins’ father. Dad thought that the men would take too much time making compromises and “kill the product’s potential.”

So only after each had launched successful separate businesses did they subsequently become business partnersContinue reading