“You need to surround yourself with quality human beings that are intelligent and have a vision.” Vince McMahon

When two companies come together to bring about greater value they need to be guided with a purpose. This purpose outlines exactly why it is that they are going into this partnership, what they hope to achieve through it and what changes will have to be made to their current business model if they were to embark on this venture. A common vision embodies all these factors.

To reach this common vision requires each of the partners to answer the three questions outlined above. Firstly “why are we wanting to embark on this partnership?”. If both sides have done their preliminary research and believe that they could add substantial value together, that becomes a strong case as to why they should partner. At this stage you need to put in some serious thought about common value systems and how integration would have an impact on operations in the future. Once both sides have agreed that there is value in them partnering they can move onto the next question.

This is ,”What do they hope to achieve through this partnership?”. This is the stage where both sides have to develop key performance indicators which would measure the effectiveness of this partnership. For example by partnering they would be able to reduce their cost of market by 10% annually which could be re-invested into R&D. In other situations one partner could leverage off the others distribution network to reduce inventory by 2x. The important aspect when developing such a proposition will be to see that the value created is not channeled to one beneficiary only. It needs to be mutually beneficial to foster trust and future growth. Once this question is answered you can move to the last question.

This is, “What changes need to be made to their current business models to execute this venture?”. At this stage we need to balance the cost of this partnership and weigh it against the benefits. This is a tricky aspect since with partnerships there are a host of intangible factors such as staff integration, communication barriers or even different value systems which may affect the partnership. Either way the two partners must do their best to evaluate the costs so as to arrive at a realistic figure.

Once we have all the key factors, a common vision for the partnership can be developed. This will help guide the partnership and provide it with KPI’s and costs which can be constantly measured and kept track of. Partnering is a commitment and one must ensure to only make those commitments which are maintainable .