Partnerships, relationships, and differentiation

Chris Willis signing in for Week 8...

Well, its been a good run. For the last seven weeks, we have been talking about expanding the outside world's impression of your firm based on the partners you keep (and don't keep). In my case study, my firm created new partnerships to drive additional features to our customers that are not available from our competitors. This is true well beyond my firm though.

I'm currently advising a non-profit organization that has a revolutionary idea to redirect budgeted direct marketing fees to raise new charitable funds. Its a great idea that employs great technology, but alone, it is something that larger competitors could reproduce fairly easily. They are currently building high-profile partnerships, though, that will add size, strength and specialty to make it impossible to replicate. Once those partnerships are in place, like a phoenix from the ashes, the non-profit will rise from is stealth-mode to begin its national marketing campaign.

As for my company... we are releasing several new products over the next few quarters. Intrinsic to each of them are the partners that will elevate the products to "solution-grade." We believe that our applications are the best, but with the right content and technology partnerships we remain, and will always be, the leader in our space.

Its been fun, and I'm sure we'll talk again soon.

CW