Technology Executives CEO Group

Friday, August 9, 2024

Discussion Topic:

Leveraging Strategic Partnering for Growth

Key Partnerships are among the Major Building Blocks of the widely read 2009 Business Model Generation book. As a Board of Directors Program Developer and Board Chair, I’ve been advocating Strategic Partnership Exploration to Business Leaders as a key business growth accelerator most of my business life.

My research and experience with this powerful business growth accelerator started in the mid ’70s. That’s when I studied how Walt Disney used many strategic partnerships as levers, in fact 33 of them – still commemorated at Disneyland’s “Club 33” (first year membership fee $50,000). These strategic partnerships catapulted Disneyland into a major destination attraction, even before it opened. Then, Disney continued with this approach, up through developing exhibits for the ’64 NYC World’s Fair, which he later brought back and incorporated into Disneyland. My interest in studying Disney was to successfully identify how to create a competitive advantage for a rival located just six miles away.

My key discovery in this area, was best summed up in three words, by the best business researcher and author I know in this area: Jordan Lewis. I engaged Jordan as a Round Table Speaker shortly after reading his first book Partnerships for Profit: Structuring and Managing Strategic Alliances. He shared these powerful three words in a 2001 presentation, “Priority Mutual Benefit.” Creating, and sustaining, Priority Mutual Benefit, in my experience, study, and analysis, is the key to creating real and sustainable leverage with strategic partners.

Back to the mid ’70s, in competing with Disneyland remarkably effectively, by growing organically, taking significant market share from the Mouse House, and redeveloping “The Halloween Haunt Program” to become a program that is now a major key to the entire industry’s profitability, I principally used approaches, learned from studying Disney, which were later described in Lewis’s second book: The Connected Corporation – How Leading Companies Win Through Customer-Supplier Alliances. How is this accomplished? First you have to think through the partnering process and then identify high value targets, a framework promoted in Chapter 14, of Lewis’s first book.

A recent example of targeting the right potential partners is Apple & Open AI sharing on June 10, “OpenAI and Apple announce partnership to integrate ChatGPT into Apple experiences.” And, “Introducing Apple Intelligence for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.” (This partnership is critical to Apple’s ability to compete with Microsoft in today’s vitally important AI Space.)

Lewis’ most powerful insights for actually developing Priority Mutual Benefit are shared in his 2000 third book: Trusted Partners – How Companies Build Mutual Trust and Win Together.

In our Discussion Presentation we’ll explore the tables of content of these three books, and concepts from another related one, before mutually discussing the following:

• What strategic partnerships has your company developed in the last three years?
• How have such partnerships accelerated the growth of your business?
• What were your key success factors in identifying and developing any such partnerships?
• What new partnerships are you now planning, and how do you see them accelerating the growth of your business?

As always, we’ll look to hear and discuss “What’s Keeping You Up Nights?,” and we’ll also serve as Strategic Advisory Board Members to Miranda Su, as she makes her Featured Member Presentation.

Miranda Su is Co-Founder & Executive Vice President of The Joy Factory, a prominent provider specializing in innovative tablet cases, mounts, kiosks, and mobility accessories designed for businesses in various industries. Miranda and her team blend heartfelt customer-centricity with state-of-the-art technology to create solutions that empower connected workers, elevate productivity, enhance safety measures, and streamline operational efficiency. Miranda’s professional journey, influenced by being an early explorer. hospitality experiences, and working for IOGEAR from 1997 to 2010, has ignited her passion for technology. With a background in hotel management and an MBA in Marketing, Miranda brings a distinctive fusion of expertise to her role. Committed to crafting products that instill joy and confidence in users, she has earned recognition for her notable contributions to the technology sector, including “Outstanding Woman in Technology” and “Orange County Women in Business.”

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