Six Key Areas For Evaluating A Strategic Alliance

Strategic alliances are increasing at a rapid rate. It isgood for business, good for the consumer. A strategicalliance is similar to a joint venture. Everyone remains inhis or her own entity, yet come together for a singlepurpose or period of time to create something that could nototherwise be created.

There are cautions and rightly concerns one must considerbefore entering into a strategic alliance with other people.For instance, evaluating each partner's value andcapabilities for alliance is mandatory before agreeing to analliance. The who, what, when, where and whys all needclarification with failsafe boundaries.

There are many considerations when developing a strategicalliance, here are six main areas along with questions thatyou will want to answer to help you determine your ownreadiness for an alliance.

1. Assessing contributions. What do you or each partnerbring to the alliance? What is each person's purpose andgoals?

2. Agreeing to the terms. This has three parts: (1) areaof interest, (2) net benefits, and (3) joint operations.What interest is yours and what is theirs. Strategicinterests must be similar and materials or servicescomparable. Economic interest must have enough benefits foreach to remain committed and minimize trade. There must anoperational agreement.

3. Agreement on task and skills. Who is the apprentice onwhat? Who will be name master on what? Who is going tospecifically be responsible to complete what task? Who isgoing to learn what? What is the division of duties?

4. Defining and measuring progress. Who is going to defineor handle sales? What target market will be pursued andwhen? What is the process chart for a new product orservice? How will the revenue be generated and distributed?What will occur if the measurements aren't met?

5. Progress and time. Who is tracing the progress and thetime invested? Is the time to be contributed equal or isthere a trade-off for other resources? Who and when willthe progress reports be regularly discussed and completed?Is there going to be a board that will monitor equality andfairness?

6. Points of tension. When there are points of tension, andthere always is so don't kid yourself that there never willbe, is an outside source going to be the arbitrator? Whentension occurs does it need to be expressed in writing firstand then discussed? Is there a cool-down period that isrequired? Who is going to sign off on checks, balance thecheckbook, and monitor cash flow?

So many questions, so little time. Yes, I understand,however, this one time you want to stop and open time,address these questions, and any others might need to beaddressed.

© Copyright 2004, Catherine Franz. All rights reserved.

Catherine Franz, a eight-year Certified Professional Coach,Graduate of Coach University, Mastery University, editor ofthree ezines, columnist, author of thousands of articleswebsite: http://www.abundancecenter.comblog: http://abundance.blogs.com