February is known as the month of love, lust, admiration and Black excellence. Relationships are celebrated a little more this month. Extra special, relationships between lovers, between friends. Relationships between Black and Brown people, and relationships between colleagues. But what about another powerful relationship that we don't think about this month.… a business partnership.
Partnerships are crucial to the growth of any new and existing business. Partnerships can give you access to knowledge, a competitive advantage, it can increase your customer base, enhance your business credibility and image and give you long term stability. A quality partnership could mean access to a new market, increase customer loyalty or even block a competitor by incorporating an exclusive contract.
Types of partnership include financial partnerships, strategic partnerships and executive-managing partnerships. However, any smart business owner will consider critical things when deciding on a partnership. Things like the level of trust and respect, whether or not there is brand alignment and very important, having similar values and shared goals. The right partnership will soar your business to new heights and the wrong one can bring your business loss.
“Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people”
-Steve Jobs
Suffice to say that all new businesses need to look for the perfect strategic partnership that complement their goals. Even start up businesses should acquire this mindset as it is equally if not more important for new business to set up the right partnerships early on in the start up phase. If large multinational corporations like Google, Apple, Luxottica, and others see strategic partnership as a way to grow and expand their enterprise then business should follow suit and reap the same benefits that come with well aligned partnerships.