Engage in Collaborative Alliances - BSBPMG637 Task 2 Written Report

This report, completed as part of the BSBPMG637 unit, focuses on developing a collaborative alliance with a social media company to increase customer base. The assignment involves researching a social media company and creating a collaboration agreement. The report analyzes various partnership categories such as marketing, advertising, rewards programs, events, and sponsorship. It explores the importance of humanizing brands in B2B social media, highlighting the need for constant attention and experimentation. The report references successful joint campaigns and emphasizes the value of audience engagement and content creation. It also discusses different types of joint campaigns, including partnerships, collaborations, cross-promotions, content placement, and value-add strategies, while stressing the importance of respecting the audience. The report emphasizes the potential for brands to leverage their assets through collaborations and partnerships to extend their marketing impact. Finally, it provides examples of successful joint campaigns, such as Taco Bell's partnership with Frito-Lay and the Campari Group's campaign with Deadpool, illustrating how different brands can work together to benefit their audiences.

BSBPMG637 Engage in collaborative alliances
Task 2 – Written Report
Task summary
This assessment is to be completed using the case study provided.
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Task 2 –Written Report
You are currently the project manager and you would like to develop a partnership or alliance with an
existing company or business to increase your own customer base. This can be done through a number
or ways from marketing, sharing adverting costs, sharing the costs of a project or event. You may
choose from one of the following choices:
1. Construction Company
2. Social Media Company
3. Fashion Label
4. Restaurant / Café
5. BYO
 I want to choose second option for this written repot.
 Social Media Company
Any executive or marketing director working in professional services knows how rapidly change occurs
in B2B marketing. And of the various spaces included in most marketing plans, B2B social media wins
the superlative for most likely to change again tomorrow.
The world of B2B social media is frustrating — often leaving marketing directors disoriented because
what was working three months ago doesn’t work anymore. Professionals building their personal
brands face a similar challenge. An endless stream of new features… More ways to analyze data…
Emerging platforms to join… How can you keep up? Inevitably this means that a good B2B social media
strategy requires constant attention and experimentation.
But what if there were some foundations you could always rely on when building your B2B social
media content strategy? In this article, we’re going to look beyond the unpredictable updates that
each platform releases and focus on two evergreen rules that are here to stay.
Rule #1 – Be Human.
Professionals who spend time on social media are doing so for a variety of reasons, ranging from
researching competitors to recruiting new employees. But one business purpose for being on social
media stands taller than the rest — networking with people you know and people you want to know.
Put another way, the chief business purpose of social media is to connect and engage with people.
These people include potential and existing clients, referral sources, other thought leaders and
possible recruits. Social media is so effective because we are always curious about what certain
individuals are doing, experiencing, learning and accomplishing. So if connecting with people is the
driving force behind social media, why do so many firms neglect to humanize their brands in this
space?
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By humanizing your brand on social media, we mean bringing a human touch to every piece of content
you share.
For example, the articles you shared were all written by individuals. Have you tagged them in your
post, highlighting their individual expertise?
And what about your firm’s news? Aren’t most of these updates related to the achievements of
individual people? Have you shared a picture showing them in action?
And finally, are people on social media interacting with your posts? If so, have you responded to them?
All of them? And have you reciprocated the interaction?
On this point we are inspired by the work of Mark Schaefer, who authored the book Marketing
Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins. On his blog, Schaefer writes, “In the past, our businesses
were built through an accumulation of advertising impressions. Today, our brands will be known, at
least in part, though an accumulation of human impressions.” What Schaefer wants business leaders
and marketers to understand is that the future of marketing is being driven by authentic human
expression.
So when it comes to your B2B social media strategy, highlight the humanity behind your brand.
Allow the voices behind your content to be heard and bring visibility to the individuals at your firm
doing excellent work for your clients.
WHAT TO DO:
 Encourage thought leaders at your firm to become Visible Experts®.
 Tag individuals in every post you share on social media and list them as authors on your website
 Celebrate and promote the achievements of your business partners and clients
WHAT NOT TO DO:
 Maintain overly rigorous standards for sharing content
 Hide who authored content on your page
 Forbid staff from using social media during business hours
Once you have selected an area to focus in, you are to research one of the above categories, and then
develop a Collaboration Agreement in Part C to submit to the intended company. The partnership or
alliance can include one of the following categories:
a. Marketing
b. Advertising
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c. Rewards Programs
d. Events
e. Sponsorship
 Rewards Programs
The pace and competitiveness of social media marketing often narrow our focus to a cycle of making
content and then pushing it through platforms of choice using the latest and greatest best practices.
The potential return on building and serving an audience with this approach is significant. However, as
we look for more ways to compete and more ways to engage, we should step back to evaluate the full
breadth of assets we develop as social media marketers and look to leverage all of them in a unique
way.
Your social media audience and the content you create to engage them are more versatile marketing
assets than you might realize.
The audience you build isn’t only a pool of customers to target. The content you create isn’t simply a
means to engage your audience.
Think of your content as an access road to your audience. If that access road and audience are high
quality, other brands will find value in the path you’ve created.
You can use these assets to extend the impact of your marketing through partnerships, cross-
promotions, and other off-social marketing activities to reach and deepen your impact with audiences
new and old.
5 Types of Joint Campaigns
The heart of this approach to marketing is the classic idea of bartering. Your audience and your
content have value, and you can trade that value to another brand to advance your strategic goals.
That said, you must make these trades in a way that doesn’t compromise the integrity of your brand,
or the trust you worked so hard to build between your brand and your audience. When a trade is
done well, your audience should actually benefit.
From a high-level perspective, these trades usually involve one of the following:
Partnerships: You enter into an agreement (formal or informal) to jointly pursue an objective with
another brand for the long-term. Along the way, you share rewards like revenue or leads.
Collaboration: You join forces with another brand to work on a short-term project or campaign, and
share the rewards. The popular practice of co-branding falls under this category, though the true
scope can be deeper.
Cross-promotion: You and another brand agree to promote each other’s products and services to
your respective audiences.
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Content placement: You and another brand agree to periodically share each other’s content with
your respective audiences.
Value-add: When making a deal with another brand or vendor, you use some level of access to your
audience as a negotiating tool.
All of these potential opportunities hinge upon respecting your audience. If one of these opportunities
doesn’t bring value to your audience or compromises the trust they placed in you by supporting your
brand, you’ll ultimately poison your own well. When successfully executed, however, your audience
will celebrate your willingness to innovate and collaborate on their behalf.
Examples of Successful Joint Campaigns
Some of the most successful brands in the world use this strategy to unlock new opportunities for their
businesses. To illustrate, Taco Bell partnered with Frito-Lay to produce the Doritos Locos Taco, which
sold 450 million units and led to the hiring of 15,000 more people less than a year after its
launch, according to Fast Company. Leading up to that success, though, were dozens of iterations
where both Taco Bell and Frito-Lay insisted on developing a product that didn’t compromise the
quality of their brands.
In other words, the Doritos taco still had to match the experience of eating Doritos. Simply slapping a
logo on the packaging would have sabotaged the goals of the partnership for both parties, so they
worked together to develop a stellar product experience that got both of their audiences excited.
Campari Group, one of the world’s leaders in spirits with brands like Wild Turkey and Skyy Vodka under
its umbrella, ran a campaign where the comic book character Deadpool took over managing the social
media accounts for the tequila Espolòn in the runup to the release of the film Deadpool 2. Deadpool
made posts, in character, to the Espolòn pages and was featured in a limited-edition DeadpoolEspolòn
box set.
Dave Karraker, vice president of communications at Campari Group and one of the architects behind
the campaign, told me that not only was the campaign designed to generate interest and engagement
for Espolòn’s social media, but the product tie-in gave Espolòn access to premium display placement at
stores across the United States. At the same time, the Deadpool brand managers were able to build
interest in the new film.
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Both of these examples show how different brands can come together to serve their audiences in new,
beneficial ways. The relationships may be complex and take time to structure, but the joining of forces
and the recognition that they’re targeting similar audiences but aren’t competitors are powerful. And
their fans benefited just as much as the businesses, because these collaborations and partnerships
meant new products and additional entertainment.
Your brand, big or small, has access to similar opportunities.
When you look at the landscape of brand-to-brand collaborations, the work between international
businesses can make the scale of these marketing campaigns appear out of reach.
Yes, the Deadpool collaboration with Espolòn was the joining of two brand titans, but partnerships
don’t have to operate at this scale to be effective. Several small businesses are applying the same
principles in myriad ways.
The husband and wife team behind Inverted Gear, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu brand, uses collaboration with
martial arts content creators and business owners to tap into new customer markets.
Their diverse strategy includes co-branded apparel products worn by instructors and event organizers,
such as a Greenland-themed kimono to celebrate their growing martial arts community. They co-
developed content and videos with those instructors as well.
Through Inverted Gear, the martial artists get access to new audiences while Inverted Gear uses the
relationships to deepen community ties.
Many of the Inverted Gear relationships with instructors and athletes begin with basic
sponsorships and grow into content sharing, product co-branding, and more involved
collaborations like documentaries.
Collaborations can also start out as classic social media marketing initiatives.
The PT Services Group, a B2B appointment-setting firm based in Pittsburgh, used thought leadership
content developed for industry publications to build new industry relationships. What started as a
guest blogging-style relationship grew into industry event invitations and offers for speaking gigs from
those publications, all of which were major wins for the PT sales pipeline.
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Part A - Identify opportunities for collaboration and develop collaborative alliances
Create a Partnership and alliance registry for 10 separate businesses that connect to your business
case study. In creating the registry make sure to:
1. Identify and evaluate opportunities for collaborative alliances according to organisational and
program objectives
2. Identify and evaluate potential collaborators according to organisational policies
3. Initiate and develop relationships with potential collaborators according to organisational
policies and procedures
Please follow the template:
Partnership Register
Numbe
r
Name Type of
Business
Product
s /
Services
Current
Marketing
Current
Advertisin
g
Benefits Negatives
1 Google Social
networkin
g sites
Social
Media
Marketing
strategies
Business Control
cost
efficiency
No
guarantees
2 Tweeter Reach a
target
audience
through ads
Online
Social
Media
Latest news
and other
advertisemen
t
News and
Knowledg
e
Immediacy Company
communicate
d not trusted
3 Faceboo
k
Network Online
Social
Media
Latest
Updates
Image
sharing
and
electronic
work
In Demand Takes time to
scale
4 Wikipedi
a
Research Online
Social
Media
Latest News
and research
work
Research
works
Scale
Control
Clutter
5 Instagra
m
Image
sharing
sites
Online
Social
Media
Current
affairs
Sales of
multiple
items
Key role in
most sales
Poor
credibility
6 YouTube Video
hosting
sites
Online
Social
Media
Latest Videos
and updates
Latest
Informativ
e videos
Transparen
t and lives
on
Declining
Response
rate
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7 Hosted
Websites
Communit
y blogs
Online
Social
sites
Latest web
links
Online
domain
users
In demand Hard to
measure
Part B - Establish collaborative agreements
Once you have completed the registry, select one business or company to focus on as the primary
candidate for your intended partnership or alliance.
Create a Collaborative Agreement and include the following details for your intended partnership or
alliance:
1. Collaborative approach with parties which adhere to organisational policies and relevant
legal requirements
Policies and procedures are an essential part of any organization. Together, policies and
procedures provide a roadmap for day-to-day operations. They ensure compliance with laws and
regulations, give guidance for decision-making, and streamline internal processes.
However, policies and procedures won’t do your organization any good if your employees don’t follow
them.
Employees don’t always like the idea of having to follow the rules. But policy implementation is not
just a matter of arbitrarily forcing employees to do things they don’t want to do.
Following policies and procedures is good for employees and your organization as a whole.
The importance of following policies and procedures
As your organization’s leaders create and enforce policies, it’s important to make sure your staff
understands why following policies and procedures is critical.
Here are just a few of the positive outcomes of following policies and procedures:
Consistent processes and structures
Policies and procedures keep operations from devolving into complete chaos.
When everyone is following policies and procedures, your organization can run smoothly.
Management structures and teams operate as they’re meant to. And mistakes and hiccups in
processes can be quickly identified and addressed.
When your staff is following policies and procedures, your organization will use time and resources
more efficiently. You’ll be able to grow and achieve your goals as an organization.
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Consistency in practices is also right for employees individually. They know what they’re responsible
for, what’s expected of them, and what they can expect from their supervisors and co-workers. This
frees them up to do their jobs with confidence and excellence.
Better quality service
When employees follow procedures, they perform tasks correctly and provide consistent customer
service. This enhances the quality of your organization’s products and services. And, in turn, improves
your company’s reputation. Employees can know they are fulfilling their roles and take pride in their
work.
A safer workplace
When your staff is following policies and procedures, workplace accidents and incidents are less likely
to occur.
This reduces liability risks for your organization and limits interruptions in operations. Your employees
can feel safe and comfortable in the workplace, knowing that their managers and co-workers are
looking out for their best interest. They can rest assured that they’ll be taken care of if something does
happen.
2. Formal agreement to ensure continuation of envisaged value and to identify potential need
for changes and additions according to organisational policies and procedures
Organizations need to develop policies and procedures that reflect their vision, values and culture
as well as the needs of their employees. Once they are in place, enforcing these guidelines is even
more important. However, accomplishing these goals can be tougher than it sounds.
A policy is a set of general guidelines that outline the organization’s plan for tackling an issue. Policies
communicate the connection between the organization’s vision and values and its day-to-day
operations.
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A procedure explains a specific action plan for carrying out a policy. Procedures tells employees how to
deal with a situation and when.
Using policies and procedures together gives employees a well-rounded view of their workplace. They
know the type of culture that the organization is striving for, what behavioris expected of them and
how to achieve both of these.
The Importance of Policies and Procedures
Regardless of your organization’s size, developing formal policies and procedures can make it run
much more smoothly and efficiently. They communicate the values and vision of the organization,
ensuring employees understand exactly what is expected of them in certain situations.
Because both individual and team responsibilities are clearly documented, there is no need for trial-
and-error or micromanaging. Upon reading the workplace policies and procedures, employees should
clearly understand how to approach their jobs.
Formal policies and procedures save time and stress when handling HR issues. The absence of written
policies results in unnecessary time and effort spent trying to agree on a course of action. With strict
guidelines already in place, employees simply have to follow the procedures and managers just have to
enforce the policies.
Implementing these documents also improves the way an organization looks from the outside. Formal
policies and procedures help to ensure your company complies with relevant regulations. They also
demonstrate that organizations are efficient, professional and stable. This can lead to stronger
business relationships and a better public reputation.
How to Develop Policies and Procedures in the Workplace
When creating a policy or procedure for your workplace, start by reviewing the mission statement,
vision and values. According to the New South Wales Government Industrial Relations, “a workplace
policy should:
 set out the aim of the policy
 explain why the policy was developed
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 list who the policy applies to
 set out what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior
 set out the consequences of not complying with the policy
 provide a date when the policy was developed or updated”
Once you implement your policies and procedures, the next step is to inform and train employees on
them. You can’t expect employees to follow guidelines if they aren’t aware of them. Be sure to
schedule regular refresher training sessions, too, to keep employees on track.
Paychex WORX says that “employees may be more likely to embrace rules when they understand their
purpose and that they are not meant to be a form of control or punishment.” For this reason, keep a
positive attitude during training sessions and leave plenty of time for employee questions.
Policies and procedures should not be written once and left alone for decades. Reviewing these
documents regularly and updating them when necessary is key to their success. In addition to an
annual review, consider updating them when you:
 adopt new equipment, software, etc.
 see an increase in accidents or failures on-site
 experience increased customer complaints
 have a feeling of general confusion or increased staff questions regarding day-to-day operations
 see inconsistency in employee job performance
 feel increased stress levels across the office
3. Collaboration plans for each agreement to support implementation
The Collaboration Planning Approach refers to the process of considering the specific conditions
associated with a set of key influences for a given research team, center, or initiative. A primary step in
the Collaboration Planning Approach involves documenting the key influences and agreed upon
actions to address each influencing factor. This process results in a written Collaboration Plan that is
tailored to a given team science effort.
Ten key influences on team science were identified to guide the Collaboration Planning process. These
ten influences range from the initial scientific rationale for a team approach to the collaboration
readiness of participating individuals and institutions to team communication and coordination
mechanisms to approaches to quality improvement for team functioning (Fig. 45.1). The Collaboration
Planning framework serves to guide collaborators through dialogue and planning around each
influence and draws their attention to key issues for consideration related to each influence. Decisions
are captured in the written Collaboration Plan.
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In the Collaboration Plan, each component documents the collaborators’ plans to maximize success
related to this component, for example, by dedicating resources, leveraging facilitating factors, or
addressing known challenges. All told, the Collaboration Plan summarizes the various ways the group
will build the foundation for, and support, effective collaboration across the lifespan of the team
science initiative, in light of these ten key influences. Given the comprehensive range of influences that
are addressed, and the various factors included within each component, the Collaboration Planning
approach may incorporate any of the aforementioned strategies (MOAs, grant supporting documents,
Welcome to My Lab letters, and pre-collaboration agreement templates), among others, to help plan
for success.
Origins of the Collaboration Planning Approach
The origins of the Collaboration Planning framework began in the context of the Subcommittee on
Team Science of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD)
Program of the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The NITRD Program
provides a forum in which many federal agencies come together to coordinate their networking and
information technology (IT) research and development (R&D) efforts (NITRD, n.d.). Given the virtually
mediated nature of almost all collaboration in science, NITRD established a subcommittee on Team
Science, with members from government, industry, and academia. Two of the authors of this chapter
(KLH and KC) were co-chairs of the subcommittee, and one author (ALV) was a member of the
subcommittee.
The authors initially proposed the concept of the Collaboration Plan, and its general structure and
content, while participating in the subcommittee Input into the key elements of Collaboration Planning
from members across numerous federal agencies enhances its potential applicability and relevance
across a broad array of sciences. Subcommittee members agreed that Collaboration Planning
represented a common need across agencies and that such an approach would be valuable for
investigators conducting research. Furthermore, the subcommittee considered the approach promising
for enhancing the grant application process, such that investigators could use the approach to write a
Collaboration Plan to include in an application for funds and reviewers and agency officials could use
the framework to help assess applicants’ readiness to participate in team science grant initiatives.
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To be effective, a Collaboration Plan must take into account the unique combination of complexity
dimensions and other influencing factors that shape the planned scientific collaboration. As a result,
each Collaboration Plan will be unique. In addition, a Collaboration Plan likely will require more details
and elements as the size and complexity of the initiative increases. For example, three co-PIs from the
same department who have worked together successfully in the past might need a modest
Collaboration Plan that outlines practices that have worked for them during previous projects, while
emphasizing additional plans around elements that are needed to address unique aspects of the new
project. In contrast, a newly established multidisciplinary multi-institutional collaboration would likely
require a lengthier Collaboration Plan that includes more extensive details associated with all ten
components. Such a collaboration would likely benefit from a Collaboration Plan that gives special
consideration to how the team will navigate disciplinary differences Print terminology and scientific
methods, and how the participating institutions will work together, including how they will address
relevant policies and procedures as well as technological issues. Similarly, an international
collaboration involving investments by multiple academic institutions and governments (e.g., the
Human Genome Project, the Large Hadron Collider) would benefit from an even more sophisticated
Collaboration Plan establishing the roles and responsibilities of each participating organization as well
as procedures for communication and decision making, approaches for sharing resources, and many
other aspects of the functioning of the scientific collaboration.
Part C - Support the evolution of collaborative agreements
Write a draft partnership proposal for the intended business or company focusing on:
1. How to monitor and nurture relationships with collaborators
Collaboration is a key factor in building a small business because it works. People thrive in
environments which free them to communicate and work together. When the company
environment is focused on collaboration, team members naturally feel a part of something bigger
than themselves. The best way to transition from an individual to a collaborative mindset is to
equip each team member for active participation in the group dynamic.
Here are 10 simply ways to cultivate team cohesion:
1. Create a clear and compelling cause.
To create a cohesion, team members must be provided with a convincing reason to be a part of the
company mission. The more compelling and exciting the mission, the easier it is to inspire team
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members to want to be a part of what the company aspires to accomplish. When they are given a
clear and gripping cause to be involved with, team members naturally become as passionate about
the goals and objectives as their leaders. If team members do not care or are unclear about
the goals and objectives presented to them, they will find all kinds of reasons not to work together.
For collaboration to work, the vision and purpose must be clear.
Related: 10 Elements Needed to Create Effective Collaboration Between Your Brand and Your
Influencer
2. Communicate expectations.
Collaboration must be communicated to team members as the minimum standard. To foster this,
team members must be provided with defined individual and collective roles and
responsibilities they will hold within the team. When they have a clear understanding of their
position, each team member will work more effectively and without accidentally stepping on
another person’s toes creating unforeseen conflicts. In a collaborative environment, each team
member experiences what it means to take part in the shared responsibility of results. With this
type of focus, what starts out as a goal becomes a crusade with the experience of success changing
from an individual achievement into a bonded group experience building comrade and morale.
3. Establish team goals.
To drive success in team members it’s important to set measurable goals for each on a quarterly
basis. The purpose of these goals is to provide team members with achievable wins. These wins
have a magical way of breaking down barriers and creating positive momentum individually and
collectively. Further, it’s imperative to re-evaluate goals and redirect whenever necessary. At each
quarter’s end, the outcomes of quarterly goals must be made available to the whole team as a way
to measure and celebrate progress, and to determine where improvements need to be made.
Working with this type of transparency decreases confusion, finger-pointing and the disintegration
of team cohesion.
4. Leverage team-member strengths.
To empower each team member, it is a great strategy to work with their strengths rather than
working around their weaknesses. It is a good idea to have each member take a personality test
such as the Myers-Briggs, and hold a team roundtable to share results. This is a great bonding
exercise because the results allow each person to get to know themselves and their team members
in a much deeper way. It also gives team members information about who to go to and for what
based upon each person’s individual strengths. When teams are connected in this way, each
member is set up for success because they are each assigned tasks that play to their respective
strengths.
5. Foster cohesion between team members.
Cohesive teams are more successful. They are successful because each person on the team is
included in as many large decisions as possible. When team members feel this type of inclusion,
they feel the perceived significance of their role, causing them to naturally perform better. To be
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the most effective, teams should to participate in daily huddles where each member discusses their
goals and objectives for day. This helps to avoid duplication of effort and competition
between team members. These huddles keep everyone on the same playbook and enables team
members to re-direct their efforts as needed.
Related: 6 Leadership Practices to Strengthen Virtual Team Cohesion
6. Encourage innovation.
For teams to grow they must be encouraged to brainstorm and question the status quo in an open
and non-judgmental environment. Team members must be coached and led to believe the
challenges and obstacles they face can and will be overcome. When a “can-do” attitude is instilled
it motivates team members to live up to those “can-do” expectations. It is also important to ask
team members for their thoughts, their reasoning and ideas on a regular basis. The more
connected and understood they feel to their manager or leader, the more motivated they will be to
perform, impress, be creative and to exceed expectations.
Related: The Lifeblood of Success: How to Encourage Innovation at Your Company
7. Keep promises and honor requests.
Most requests and promises are held sacred within a team, but considered optional between other
company units or customers. Taking a request from a customer seriously and demonstrating that
the team is working to do what they say they are going to do, goes a long way towards building
trust and blurring boundaries. The question every customer and every business unit asks of
another is, can I count on you? Will you be there when I need you? Do you care about this as much
as we do? When team members and customers feel they can depend upon you and your team to
deliver what they expect, business grows, relationships grow as does revenue.
Related: A Promise Is A Promise: Don't Bite Off More Than You Can Chew
9. Encourage people to socialize outside of work.
We all lead busy personal lives and the thought of having one more corporate event we are
obligated to attend can add stress. However, socializing with co-workers outside the office is an
effective way to open channels of communication, to create a better understanding and break
down any walls of pre-judgemental or mistrust between team members. When team members
learn they share common interests or wrestle with some of the same challenges outside of work as
others, they experience their team members as more real, which helps to decrease individual bias,
stereotyping and false objectifying. When we see our team members as human, it makes it more
difficult to point the finger at them.
10. Recognize, reward and celebrate collaborative behavior.
The legends of athletic dynasties or standout corporate successes consist of incredible
collaborative efforts. Team members often sit in conversation reminiscing over how it all came
together. Whether shared through video, newsletter, podcast, annual report or seminar, stories of
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great collaboration break down the walls of individualism and honor the collective
accomplishment. Attaching performance rewards and bonuses to collaborative efforts sends the
right message to team members about the values that are driving the business.
2. How to assess performance of all parties to an agreement against organisational and program
objectives and expected results, and address variances
The purpose of performance measurement is to help organizations understand how decision-making
processes or practices led to success or failure in the past and how that understanding can lead to
future improvements. Key components of an effective performance measurement system include
these:
 Clearly defined, actionable, and measurable goals that cascade from organizational mission to
management and program levels;
 Cascading performance measures that can be used to measure how well mission, management,
and program goals are being met;
 Established baselines from which progress toward the attainment of goals can be measured;
 Accurate, repeatable, and verifiable data; and
 Feedback systems to support continuous improvement of an organization’s processes,
practices, and results (FFC, 2004).
Qualitative and quantitative performance measures are being integrated into existing DOE project
management practices and procedures (DOE, 2000). They are used at critical decision points and in
internal and external reviews to determine if a project is ready to proceed to the next phase. Project
directors and senior managers are using them to assess project progress and determine where
additional effort or corrective actions are needed. However, DOE does not receive the full benefit of
these measures because there is no benchmarking system to analyze the data to identify trends and
successful techniques or compare actual performance with planned outcomes. For long-term process
improvement, project performance measures and benchmarking processes should be used as projects
are planned and executed as well as after they are completed.
Figure 2.1 describes a project performance control model that can be used to improve current and
future projects by identifying trends and closing gaps between targeted and actual performance.
Current DOE project and program management procedures such as Energy Systems Acquisition
Advisory Board (ESAAB) reviews, Earned Value Management System (EVMS), Project Analysis and
Reporting System (PARS), Office of Environmental Management Project Definition Rating Index (EM-
PDRI), quarterly assessments, external independent reviews (EIRs), and independent project reviews
(IPRs) are integrated into this model and called assessment processes.
In this model, project management processes are applied to inputs such as project resources to
generate project plans, and these plans and resources become inputs for project execution. Individual
projects are assessed and benchmarked against project targets and the performance of other projects.
Output measures are compared with performance targets to identify performance gaps. These gaps
are analyzed to identify corrective actions and improve the project as it proceeds. Once a project is
completed, an assessment can be made of what worked well and where improvements in processes
and project teams are needed for future projects (NRC, 2004c). The project outcomes are assessed to
develop
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Bottom of Form
FIGURE 2.1 Model for controlling project performance.
lessons learned, which can be used as a feedback mechanism to improve policies and procedures and
may drive changes in decision making and other processes.
INPUT, PROCESS, OUTPUT, AND OUTCOME MEASURES
Although assessment of the results of an internal process, such as project management, is much more
straightforward than assessment of the results of public programs, the performance measures used
can have intrinsic similarities. Performance measures for public program assessments are generally
identified as input, process, output, and outcome (Hatry, 1999). Input is a measure of the resources
(money, people, and time) provided for the activity being assessed. Process measures assess activities
by comparing what is done with what should be done according to standard procedures or the number
of process cycles in a period of time. Output measures assess the quantity and quality of the end
product, and outcome measures assess the degree to which the end product achieves the program or
project objectives. Assessment becomes more difficult as the target moves from input to outcome
because of the influence of factors that are external to the program.
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FIGURE 2.2 Performance assessment model.
Following this paradigm, project management is essentially a process; however, project management
can be evaluated at both the program and the project level to assess its inputs, processes, outputs, and
outcomes (Figure 2.2). At the program level, the input measures include the number of project
directors and their training and qualifications. Program process measures relate to policies and
procedures and how well they are followed. Program output measures identify how well projects are
meeting objectives for cost and schedule performance. Outcome measures focus on how well the final
projects support the program’s or department’s mission.
When project management is assessed at the project level, the input measures include the
resources available and the quality of project management plans. Project process measures look at
how well the plans are executed. Project output measures include cost and schedule variables, while
outcome measures include scope, budget, and schedule and safety performance. In the 2003
assessment report (NRC, 2004a), the desired outcome at the program or departmental level was
referred to as “ doing the right project.” The desired outcome at the project level was “doing it right.”
The committee noted that both are required for success.
Bottom of Form
The committee has identified all four types of measures, combined the two approaches (program
and project), and grouped the measures in terms of the primary users (program managers and project
managers). This approach separates measures used at the project level from measures used at the
program/departmental level and combines input and process measures and output and outcome
measures. In this approach, some output/outcome measures at the project level can be aggregated to
provide measures at the program/departmental level through an analysis of distributions and trends.
The committee believes that this will facilitate the benchmarking process by addressing the needs of
the people who provide the data and derive benefits from the process.
3. How to make changes to agreements as required according to organisational policies and
procedures
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Leaving the worst-case-scenarios aside, not being compliant is no fun. But ensuring that your
organizations’ operations are fully running according to the law can be a tedious and complex process.
Over the last 14 years, together with our partners, Be Informed build numerous compliance solutions.
We noticed that there are five basic steps every organizations has to take in account to ensure
compliance.
1. Stay on track with changing laws and regulations
Compliant is not something your organization just is. It’s a continuous process of scanning for changing
laws and regulation, identifying the areas in which it impacts your organization, changing policy and
implementing policy change, and monitoring. Make sure to identify which laws and regulations apply
to your organization and stay on top of changes. When you’re prepared for upcoming changes, you
don’t risk being overwhelmed when new legislation starts being enforced.
Tip: Software solutions with a ‘identify new regulations’ feature make this process easier, by
automatically detecting relevant changes in legislation through Natural Language Processing.
2. Involve specialists
Especially small and growing organizations may unintentionally break laws. To prevent this, ensure
that the organization is transparent in its operations. Furthermore, it is advisable to hire specialists or
involve consultants to be sure that everything is in order. This allows owners and employees to ask for
advice when needed, to ensure actions and procedures are compliant.
Tip: Specialist insights can be utilized to create a software solution that perfectly suits the needs of your
organization to ensure you stay compliant.
3. Ensure employees follow procedures
Company policy is not worth anything if it is not followed by employees. Especially changes in policy
may not always be adapted by the workforce with ease, and employees may be reluctant to change
practices in their everyday workflows. It’s key to involve HR in this process.
Most importantly, make sure to communicate company policy and procedures well. Part of this is to
ensure they are well documented and readily available; both digitally and physically. Furthermore,
make sure that employees understand why policy and procedures are the way they are, or why they
have changed. It may also be necessary to implement employee training on how to properly adapt
procedures. And lastly, you may want to think about implementing a reward system for employees
who comply and develop sanctions in case of violations.
Tip: Ensuring your knowledge workers follow company policy can be done by replacing repetitive tasks
with automation wherever possible.
4. Schedule regular internal audits
Regular internal audits are a great tool to uncover inadequate and ineffective procedures that lead to
not being compliant. Internal audits may focus on the financial, operational, technological or
regulatory aspects of the organization. It is of importance that an internal auditor is independent when
reviewing compliance, as well as implements generally accepted auditing standards (GAAS).
Tip: Compliance software solutions may be capable of providing audit trails to make internal auditing
easier.
5. Use the right software
Ensuring compliance without the right tools makes the job much more complex. Organizations who
have the right compliance software in place are more likely to operate in accordance to the law and
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reduce the risks of human errors. Furthermore, good compliance software often has built-in tools for
organizing documents and automatically generate audit trails to easily prove compliance.
Be Informed is a low code development platform that helps organizations worldwide to create
solutions to ensure compliance. For example, consultancy and engineering firm Witteveen+Bos created
the +Compliance Solution. This solution helps clients regain or remain in control of business processes
and supports end-to-end compliance with environmental legislation.
Discussion may follow the sequence below:
 State the reason for your need or want to form a business partnership or alliance with the
business you have selected from assessment 1.
 Explain what benefits will come from the partnership or alliance for your intended business /
company.
Step One: Clearly Define and Validate Your Market
The first order of business of any startup.The goal of market validation is to identify your target market
— the customers experiencing the most significant pain and who need your solution the most.
Through this process you identify the gap between what constitutes a total solution and what minimal
functionality you can realistically deliver. That gap represents your partnering roadmap — where you
need to partner to deliver the total solution.
This is why market validation is the first order of business for any startup and the first order of business
in any strategic alliance strategy. One of the biggest mistakes startups make is trying to build the
perfect solution or killer app. You will never have enough capital or resources to ever be able to do
this, so focusing on your core competencies is the best approach. Fill the gaps with partners.
Step Two: Develop Partner Selection Criteria
As with just about anything, if you don’t know what you’re looking for, how will you know when you’ve
found it? Sit down with your management team and identify the most important criteria for selecting
the right partner fit for your business. Areas to consider:
 What is the potential for impact? The most important criterion is the potential of an alliance
with this target to deliver strategic value to your company. What would be the impact to
your competitive position, brand awareness, market acceleration? How quickly could you get
traction with this partner in the marketplace?
 Are the two companies compatible? This is where your friends and family network and
reference calls with existing partners will prove helpful. Is this company’s culture and
management team compatible with yours, and do you have compatible core competencies?
 Are their goals and strategies consistent with yours? The stronger alignment there is between
your company goals and the target company’s, the greater the likelihood of forging a
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successful alliance. Identify what the target companies goals and objectives are and
determine if they are synergistic with yours.
 Is this a good environment for partnering? It’s very helpful to know what kind of partnering
culture the target organization has. Do they have a good reputation with their partners? Do
they demonstrate a commitment to partnering? One of the most effective ways to ferret this
out is to talk to one or more of the target company’s existing partners and ask them what
their experiences have been.
 What are the risks with this partnership? Risks of doing? Risks of not doing?
 What access can they provide to other potential partners? Companies tend to settle into one or
more partner networks. Consider the partners that your target company has. Would any of
these companies be desirable targets? Are any of them already on your partner target list?
Step Three: Identify and Prioritize Partner Candidates
From the gaps you identified in your market validation work in Step One, start identifying companies
who possess your missing capabilities. Read the trade rags, contact trade associations, search the web,
and leverage your investor and advisor networks including your accounting and law firms. Who do the
industry analysts say are the important companies in the space you’re targeting? Add these companies
to your recruitment target list. Using the criteria you identified in Step Two, prioritize your target list to
whittle it down to a manageable number of companies to target.
Step Four: Prepare “Partner Proposition Worksheet”
You only get one chance to make a first impression. Don’t blow it by indiscriminately calling your
targets and “winging it.” Approach partner recruitment with the same care and preparation that you
would if you were trying to land a marquee customer.
Prepare a “Partner Proposition Worksheet” [.doc] for each partner prospect. Start by thinking through
“WIIFT” (what’s in it for them). Here you must stand in the target partner’s shoes. Why would they
want to partner with you? Why do they need to partner with you? What capabilities do you have that
they need in order to compete more effectively? Do your homework. Understand the company’s goals,
objectives, and strategies and what’s happening to them in the market. Think through what your
combined value proposition would be to customers. Identify a compelling vision for the partnership
and articulate the impact of that vision on the marketplace.
Finally, clearly articulate your partnering proposition — what it is that you are proposing that you do
together. Be as specific as possible. Perhaps you can even identify a few options.
Step Five: Conduct Recruitment Call(s)
Once you’ve done your homework, you are now ready for that initial call. Depending on the size of the
firm your target will either be a VP of Business Development, VP of Marketing, or perhaps the
company founder or president. Use your friends and family network to identify the right contact and
perhaps get an introduction. Send them a copy of your completed partner proposition worksheet and
step them through it. You will win points with them simply for being prepared and demonstrating
knowledge of their business.
If all goes well, they’ll request a follow-up call or visit and the due diligence process will begin.
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Step Six: Conduct Due Diligence
In this step both you and the partner prospect will be evaluating the “fit.” Is your product real and
ready? What investments will be required to make the partnership work? You will need to layout the
business case for the partnership.
Step Seven: Negotiate Partnership Agreement
Actually the negotiation process effectively starts when you make your initial call to the partner
prospect. You should be continually establishing your value throughout the process. Prepare a business
terms document first which lays out the general business terms. Get agreement from the business
sponsors on the business terms before you engage the attorneys.
Step Eight: Develop an Alliance Plan.
Before you uncork the Champagne bottle, realize that after the alliance agreement has been signed
your work has just begun. You now need to work with your new partner to develop an alliance plan
that outlines partnership goals/objectives, action plans, rules of engagement, and checkpoints , and
you will need to assign an alliance manager to manage the relationship and execute on the plan.
 Write a brief background to the company you intend to pitch to for your business partnership
and or alliance.
We’re very clear on what we’re looking for. We want to connect with unexpected partners who will
challenge us, disrupt our brands/categories and open our eyes to new ideas that will define and drive
the future of our business. For us it’s about building our global partnership ecosystem. Creating win–
win partnerships with exciting innovators who share our values and want to co-create solutions to
drive a better, different tomorrow for our consumers. To start this, we’re teaming up
with Indiegogo to discover and potentially partner with an exciting health, home or hygiene product
and explore how we can bring it to life globally.
However as with any company of our size, we do have a ‘partner of choice’ wish list – an overview of
the types of businesses, organisations and partners we want to connect with. Those who are changing
the game with disruptive innovation, creative thinking and new ways of working. Sometimes we are
unaware of these potential partners, in many cases they come to us but when we are looking, we
know what we are looking for.
So if you’re a startup or a small to medium enterprise, how do you ensure that you are attractive to big
business? If you make it through the shortlist from the Indiegogo challenge, what is it that puts you on
that ‘Partner of Choice’ wish list when pitching yourself?
Here are 10 principles for success:
1. Strategic fit is crucial – do your homework!
One size doesn’t fit all. Rather than blanket pitching to a group of companies that you think are similar,
you need to really do your homework to make sure you are the right fit. Do you understand the
company culture, brands and approach to partnering?
2. Be clear on what you want from a partner
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No-one knows your business like you do so you should be very clear on what it is that a big business
can offer you and what it is that you actually want. Think about your vision and value proposition.
3. Be clear on what you have to offer
Also be clear on what you have to offer in return. This is imperative in forming a true partnership
going forward – the minute the interest wains is the minute it becomes purely transactional and
unlikely to be sustainable.
4. Put the consumer first
We are a consumer led organisation. All of our brands and products are based on consumer insight and
we invest heavily in consumer research to ensure we are creating products that meet a real consumer
need. When pitching your business, be clear on what is your USP and differentiator. Ensure that you
can really translate the technology/technical benefit into consumer benefits and validate with
consumers as much as possible. The stronger your consumer insight, the better your pitch.
5. Be honest about the commercial opportunity
This is where you tell the story about the scope and scale of the problem you are solving. You need to
showcase the ideal customer/consumer and how many of them there are. What is the total market
size and how do you position your company within the market? Big companies are interested in big
commercial opportunities, so show them how you can help them tap into one.
6. Think globally
And I don’t mean think about money rolling in from all over the world! Consider the challenges that
come from operating globally as most big businesses do. For example, be prepared for and show
you’ve thought about scale-up challenges such as multi-country regulations, manufacturing, consumer
research etc.
7. Understand the competitive landscape.
Don’t be naive. The key here is explaining how you are different than the other players on the market
and why customers will choose you instead of one of them. Show that you understand the
competition.
8. Know the numbers
Do you really understand the costs? Are projections accurate? Be honest about the figures as any
corporate partner will need these to really understand the commercial viability, and time is wasted
when the figures become the topic of debate.
9. Sell your company, not just your product
Tell us who your team are and why your team are the right people to build and grow this company?
Sell yourself – showcase what experience you have that others don’t. Highlight the key team members,
their successes in business, and the key expertise that they bring to the table. We buy as much into
people as we do companies.
10. Finally, keep the pitch short and impactful
This should be a given, but we are often surprised (in the wrong way!). Use demos, videos and other
creative ways of sharing the key messages – make an impact. Think elevator pitch and tell your story.
 Explain the opportunities you can project for the partnership or collaborative alliance.
Alliances between companies, whether they are from different parts of the world or different ends of
the supply chain, are a fact of life in business today. Some alliances are no more than fleeting
encounters, lasting only as long as it takes one partner to establish a beachhead in a new market.
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Others are the prelude to a full merger of two or more companies’ technologies and capabilities.
Whatever the duration and objectives of business alliances, being a good partner has become a key
corporate asset. I call it a company’s collaborative advantage. In the global economy, a well-developed
ability to create and sustain fruitful collaborations gives companies a significant competitive leg up.
Yet, too often, top executives devote more time to screening potential partners in financial terms than
to managing the partnership in human terms. They tout the future benefits of the alliance to their
shareholders but don’t help their managers create those benefits. They worry more about controlling
the relationship than about nurturing it. In short, they fail to develop their company’s collaborative
advantage and thereby neglect a key resource.
Business alliances are living systems, evolving progressively in their possibilities.
Three years ago, I began a worldwide quest for lessons about productive partnerships, especially but
not exclusively those intercompany relationships that spanned two or more countries and cultures. My
research group and I observed more than 37 companies and their partners from 11 parts of the world
(the United States, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Turkey, China,
Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Japan). We included large and small companies in both manufacturing and
service industries that were involved in many kinds of alliances. To ensure that the lessons were widely
applicable, we sought companies less prominent in the business press than giants like IBM, Corning,
Motorola, or Ford. Several of the relationships that we studied were more than 20 years old; others
had formed only recently in response to industry and geopolitical changes. In multiple visits, we
conducted more than 500 interviews with leaders and staffs of both partners. Over time, we saw
relationships blossom after good or rocky starts; change goals or structures; and wither or dissolve—
amicably or contentiously. Our research uncovered three fundamental aspects of business alliances:
 They must yield benefits for the partners, but they are more than just the deal. They are living
systems that evolve progressively in their possibilities. Beyond the immediate reasons they
have for entering into a relationship, the connection offers the parties an option on the future,
opening new doors and unforeseen opportunities.
 Alliances that both partners ultimately deem successful involve collaboration (creating new
value together) rather than mere exchange (getting something back for what you put in).
Partners value the skills each brings to the alliance.
 They cannot be “controlled” by formal systems but require a dense web of interpersonal
connections and internal infrastructures that enhance learning.
Moreover, we observed that North American companies, more than others in the world, take a
narrow, opportunistic view of relationships, evaluating them strictly in financial terms or seeing them
as barely tolerable alternatives to outright acquisition. Preoccupied with the economics of the deal,
North American companies frequently neglect the political, cultural, organizational, and human
aspects of the partnership. Asian companies are the most comfortable with relationships, and
therefore they are the most adept at using and exploiting them. European companies fall somewhere
in the middle.
Exploring the different outcomes of the business relationships of other companies can help companies
manage their own. Successful alliances build and improve a collaborative advantage by first
acknowledging and then effectively managing the human aspects of their alliances.
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Varieties of Relationships
Cooperative arrangements between companies range along a continuum from weak and distant to
strong and close. At one extreme, in mutual service consortia, similar companies in similar industries
pool their resources to gain a benefit too expensive to acquire alone—access to an advanced
technology, for example. At mid-range, in joint ventures, companies pursue an opportunity that needs
a capability from each of them—the technology of one and the market access of the other, for
example. The joint venture might operate independently, or it might link the partners’ operations. The
strongest and closest collaborations are value-chain partnerships, such as supplier-customer
relationships. Companies in different industries with different but complementary skills link their
capabilities to create value for ultimate users. Commitments in those relationships tend to be high, the
partners tend to develop joint activities in many functions, operations often overlap, and the
relationship thus creates substantial change within each partner’s organization.
In value-chain partnerships, companies with different skills come together to build value for
customers.
Companies can participate simultaneously in many kinds of relationships, and partners in any
relationship may play a variety of roles. The 65 partners in Inmarsat, a consortium that operates a
telecommunications satellite, are simultaneously owners investing capital, customers routing calls
through the satellites, suppliers of technology to the venture, regulators setting policy,
and competitors offering services similar to Inmarsat’s. Netas, Northern Telecom’s joint venture with
local investors in Turkey, is simultaneously an investment asset for Northern, a customer for Northern
equipment, a supplier of new software and systems, and a gatekeeper to other relationships.
In every case, a business relationship is more than just the deal. It is a connection between otherwise
independent organizations that can take many forms and contains the potential for additional
collaboration. It is a mutual agreement to continue to get together; thus its value includes the
potential for a stream of opportunities.
 Explain the benefits for your business / company.
There are plenty of challenges that come with operating your own business. For many people, though,
the rewards of running a business far outweigh the difficulties. In fact, 76% of those who decide to run
their own small business are "somewhat happy" or "very happy" with their decision, according to a
2020 survey conducted by Guidant Financial's Small Business Trends Alliance.1
This line of work isn't just for the entrepreneurial spirit, either. Running a business can prove exciting
for many people and for many different reasons. Whether you are looking for a flexible lifestyle, are
eager to innovate, or simply want more control over your work and earning potential, there are many
benefits to running your own business. Here are just a few of the biggest.
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Independence and Control
Have you ever worked a job in which you felt you could do better if you had control over how the work
was done? Let's face it, jobs can be constricting and sometimes don't allow you to maximize your
knowledge and skill.
When you build your own business, you do what you want, how you want, when you want. You
develop the product or service to the level you think is best. You have systems and routines that work
best for you. And if you need a powernap in the late morning or afternoon to boost creativity and
productivity, you can take one.
According to the Small Business Trends Alliance survey, 55% of small business owners started their
own business because they were "ready to be their own boss."1
Financial Rewards
Granted, statistics on business success can seem grim. After all, roughly 50% of businesses survive to
five years.2 With that said, there is much you can do to improve your chances of success, and in fact,
depending on your goals, opening a business might be a better financial option than working for an
employer.
For one, with a business, you're more likely to earn what you're worth, especially if you're a woman.
Instead of earning 82% of what a man earns, a woman can charge her value in a business.3 As the
business owner, you can set prices and grow your salary with the business. When you throw in
the business tax perks, you could end up making more than you would in a job.
Flexibility
Running a business can work well for many different lifestyles. For women, especially, owning your
own business can give the lifestyle flexibility necessary to raise a family and still have a successful
career. Women-owned businesses have been showing up at a faster rate than new businesses in
general—at 21% per year vs. 9%, respectively, from 2014–2019.4 According to a series of case studies
by the National Women's Business Council, flexibility was a major factor for many women who decided
to pursue entrepreneurship.5
Millennials and Generation Z workers are known to look for flexibility in their workplaces, and running
a business can work well for many of them.6 Likewise, people who are close to retirement or already
retired may find owning their own business gives them the chance to keep their hands busy while not
demanding the same rigid schedule of a typical job. People who want to travel or live a
particular lifestyle can benefit from entrepreneurship, plus you might be able to work from home—or
anywhere else you like.
Directly Helping People
Many small business owners launch their own businesses to make a positive impact in their local
communities. This can happen through the products or services they provide or through the local
causes they support. Small businesses also account for nearly half of the private workforce in the U.S.,
so launching your own business is a great way to provide jobs for many in the local community.7
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Opportunity for Innovation
Established organizations can—and do—create great change and innovation. Often, though, the most
powerful new ideas come from small business owners that venture out on their own when they can't
get traction for their ideas in their current workplace.
 Explain the WIFM (What’s In IT For Me!)
In trying to execute a change initiative, many leaders make a common mistake: they try to lead by
announcement, by sloganeering, or–worse yet–by executive fiat. To them, their change idea is
completely logical. Trouble is, to win the support of others they must appeal to the psychological.
When confronted with change, most people tune in to their favorite internal radio station: WIIFM–
What’s In It For Me? That’s not to suggest that most people are selfish. It’s simply a fact
that personal context is usually the first filter we use to evaluate our environment. It’s especially
true when we’re asked to participate in some sort of change.
Change is movement away from the present. And change is movement toward a future that
promises not just something different but, hopefully, something better.
What we call the present was never really firm. It was in a constant state of tension between the
need to remain stable and the need to respond to the inevitable adjustments of time and
circumstance.
AD
Change is not what troubles most people. What gives them the greatest heartburn is the transition
from the present to the future. Change is situational: the new team roles, the new manager, the
new procedure, the new way of operating. Transition is the psychological rite of passage during
which people come to terms with the new situation (the change).
Your challenge is to validate the journey.
Every change begins with an ending. People look at the present and try to compare it to the future
by asking countless questions: What am I losing? Where are we headed? What will the new place
look like? How will it be different from what I have now? What about the work flow? Who will be
my teammates? What will be the expectations for my contribution? What performance metrics will
be used?
In other words, what’s in it for me?
When you ask people to go from where they are to someplace else, your task is to create a vision
they can understand and will be willing to embrace. Defining the future with absolute, irrevocable
certainty is rarely possible. But you should try to paint a picture of it with as much clarity as
practical.
Does the change involve creating a new team? Who will be the team leader? Who will be the other
team members? What will be the team’s tasks and authority?
Does the change involve a new product or service? How will it differ from previous offerings? How
will it be positioned with customers? What support will the marketing and distribution people
provide?
Does the change involve something amorphous like “better communication”? If so, clarity is
especially important. One person may define “better communication” in terms of open and honest
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dialogue and breaking down inter-departmental silos, while another may think only in terms of
getting a new carrier for his cell phone service.
 Describe the relationship you wish to form with the intended company or business.
Relationships are important in life. They make us feel safe and help us deal with stress.
Relationships aren’t only important in your personal life, though. As a business owner, you should
also build professional relationships. Relationship building from a business standpoint can help you
get new customers, retain current customers and manage your reputation.
What kinds of relationships should you build?
The three most important types of relationships you should build are with your customers,
employees and members of your community. Read on to learn how to build each type of
relationship.
Building Customer Relationships
You’re probably already doing this, but first and foremost, you should be building relationships
with customers.
Customers will be more comfortable continuing to use your business if they feel they know you
personally. They will probably also be more likely to talk to you if they have a problem, rather than
telling everyone they know (or turning to Yelp with a one-star review) if they have an experience
they perceive as negative.
Sixty-five percent of your business probably comes from existing customers. How can you keep
those customers? Build a relationship with them! The average business loses 20 percent (and some
can lose up to 80 percent) of its customers because the business fails to cultivate and nurture
relationships with customers.
And repeat customers are extremely profitable. They spend more, and they are 60-70 percent
more likely to convert (take an action you want them to take, such as filling out a form on your
website).
How can you build relationships with your customers?
Talk to them and ask for feedback.
If your business is a restaurant, walk around to the tables and ask customers if everything was
okay. But go a little further and ask them how they’re doing. Don’t pry into their lives, but do show
genuine interest in their experiences at your business.
And make it easy for customers to complain. I know; it’s frustrating to hear negative comments
about your business, but encourage that conversation.
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Let customers know they can come to you with problems. You might just save your reputation by
receiving fewer negative online comments and by being known as the business owner in your city
and industry who is easy to work with.
Negative online reviews in search results can cause you to lose up to 70 percent of potential
customers. While you have no control over what consumers say about your business online, you
can at least make them feel more comfortable coming to you with their problems, giving your
business a better chance of avoiding those negative reviews.
If a customer does leave a negative review, be sure to reply and make it right for the
customer. Online reviews are important, and consumers read your reviews. If you reply to
negatives and attempt to make amends with the customer, you could salvage that relationship
(and your online reputation).
Make sure your customer service is excellent, as well. If your interactions with customers leave
something to be desired, customers won't feel comfortable talking to you or your employees, and
it will be that much harder to build customer relationships.
Zappos is known for its customer service. The company goes above and beyond. Once, when a
customer's shipment was delayed, Zappos sent them a unicorn. They gained a customer for life by
doing this. You don't need to send all your customers life-size stuffed animals every time something
goes wrong, but resolve complaints quickly and efficiently so that customers are happy enough to
return to your business.
Building Employee Relationships
It’s important that your employees feel safe talking to you about their thoughts and problems.
Make sure your employees know they can come to you when they are having a problem or they
need help with anything at work.
We talked about listening to customers, but don't forget about your employees in the process.
Welcome employee input. Listen to their ideas. Let them know you value their feedback.
And protect them. A trait of successful leadership is that you protect your team. If you do this,
they'll feel comfortable coming to you with problems rather than leaving issues unresolved (or
leaving the business altogether).
Keep open communication with your employees. Check-in and see how they're doing every once in
a while. Ask if they need anything from you. Be there for them, and they will be more likely to
continue working at your business.
This will not only help build your reputation, as your employees will want to tell friends and family
(and all their social media friends) that they love their job. Employee retention could also save you
money:
One-third of new hires quit a job after the first six months
Employees who feel engaged at work are less likely to look for a new job
Employee engagement can lead to an 18 percent higher customer retention rate
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Keep employees engaged, and keep open communication with them so that they feel valued (and
more likely to stay).
And if you need help getting your team to be on the same level, you may want to try some team-
building exercises.
Building Relationships with Members of the Community
Of course you want to nurture your current customer base, but what about meeting new people?
Here’s why local business owners should build relationships with people who aren’t (and might
never become) their customers:
The obvious answer is that it’s possible that they will become a customer, but there’s more than
that to building a relationship with a stranger. I’m not saying you have to become best friends with
everyone you meet, but meeting new people and networking can do a lot for a local business.
Any time I meet someone who owns a local business, I want to visit the business and tell my friends
about it. If people in your community meet you personally, they will probably want to use your
business the next time they are in need of a service or product you provide.
Members of your community can be one of your most valuable resources. If you are in need of
help, and you've been networking at local events, you're more likely to have met someone who can
help you out.
How to Build Relationships in Your Community
Building relationships takes patience. You will have to invest time in building those relationships.
You can’t just walk up to someone and say, “Hey, want to have a business relationship with me?”
(Well, you could, but you probably shouldn’t. You wouldn’t just walk up to someone and say,
“We’re friends now.” Approach business relationships the same way.)
Take the time to cultivate those relationships. You don’t have to invite everyone you meet at a
networking event over for dinner, but get to know people. Talk to them. Give them your card
and/or your email address.
As a busy business owner, it’s going to be hard to take the time to meet new people, but here are
some places where you can meet others:
Chamber of Commerce and other local organizations
Local networking events
Charity events
LinkedIn
Final Thoughts on Relationship Building
When you're working to build relationships with members of your community, keep these three
ideas in mind:
Be willing to reciprocate. Remember that there is a give and a take in all relationships. If you aren’t
willing to be there for someone who has been (or even who would be) there for you, that person
will be less likely to help you out if you need it.
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 Define the aspects you wish to share such as, costs, resources, skills, media, marketing,
advertising, monies, brand awareness.
Social media is used by billions of people around the world and has fast become one of the defining
technologies of our time. Facebook, for example, reported having 2.38 billion monthly active users and
1.56 billion daily active users as of March 31, 2019 (Facebook 2019). Globally, the total number of
social media users is estimated to grow to 3.29 billion users in 2022, which will be 42.3% of the world’s
population (eMarketer 2018). Given the massive potential audience available who are spending many
hours a day using social media across the various platforms, it is not surprising that marketers have
embraced social media as a marketing channel. Academically, social media has also been embraced,
and an extensive body of research on social media marketing and related topics, such as online word
of mouth (WOM) and online networks, has been developed. Despite what academics and practitioners
have studied and learned over the last 15–20 years on this topic, due to the fast-paced and ever-
changing nature of social media—and how consumers use it—the future of social media in marketing
might not be merely a continuation of what we have already seen. Therefore, we ask a pertinent
question, what is the future of social media in marketing?
Addressing this question is the goal of this article. It is important to consider the future of social media
in the context of consumer behavior and marketing, since social media has become a vital marketing
and communications channel for businesses, organizations and institutions alike, including those in the
political sphere. Moreover, social media is culturally significant since it has become, for many, the
primary domain in which they receive vast amounts of information, share content and aspects of their
lives with others, and receive information about the world around them (even though that information
might be of questionable accuracy). Vitally, social media is always changing. Social media as we know it
today is different than even a year ago (let alone a decade ago), and social media a year from now will
likely be different than now. This is due to constant innovation taking place on both the technology
side (e.g., by the major platforms constantly adding new features and services) and the user/consumer
side (e.g., people finding new uses for social media) of social media.
What is social media?
Definitionally, social media can be thought of in a few different ways. In a practical sense, it is a
collection of software-based digital technologies—usually presented as apps and websites—that
provide users with digital environments in which they can send and receive digital content or
information over some type of online social network. In this sense, we can think of social media as the
major platforms and their features, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We can also in practical
terms of social media as another type of digital marketing channel that marketers can use to
communicate with consumers through advertising. But we can also think of social media more broadly,
seeing it less as digital media and specific technology services, and more as digital places where people
conduct significant parts of their lives. From this perspective, it means that social media becomes less
about the specific technologies or platforms, and more about what people do in these environments.
To date, this has tended to be largely about information sharing, and, in marketing, often thought of as
a form of (online) word of mouth (WOM).
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Building on these definitional perspectives, and thinking about the future, we consider social media to
be a technology-centric—but not entirely technological—ecosystem in which a diverse and complex
set of behaviors, interactions, and exchanges involving various kinds of interconnected actors
(individuals and firms, organizations, and institutions) can occur. Social media is pervasive, widely used,
and culturally relevant. This definitional perspective is deliberately broad because we believe that
social media has essentially become almost anything—content, information, behaviors, people,
organizations, institutions—that can exist in an interconnected, networked digital environment where
interactivity is possible. It has evolved from being simply an online instantiation of WOM behaviors and
content/information creation and sharing. It is pervasive across societies (and geographic borders) and
culturally prominent at both local and global levels.
Throughout the paper we consider many of the definitional and phenomenological aspects described
above and explore their implications for consumers and marketing in order to address our question
about the future of marketing-related social media. By drawing on academic research, discussions with
industry leaders, popular discourse, and our own expertise, we present and discuss a framework
featuring nine themes that we believe will meaningfully shape the future of social media in marketing.
These themes by no means represent a comprehensive list of all emerging trends in the social media
domain and include aspects that are both familiar in extant social media marketing literature (e.g.,
online WOM, engagement, and user-generated content) and emergent (e.g., sensory considerations in
human-computer interaction and new types of unstructured data, including text, audio, images, and
video). The themes we present were chosen because they capture important changes in the social
media space through the lenses of important stakeholders, including consumers, industry/practice,
and public policy.
In addition to describing the nature and consequences of each theme, we identify research directions
that academics and practitioners may wish to explore. While it is infeasible to forecast precisely what
the future has in store or to project these on a specific timeline, we have organized the emergent
themes into three time-progressive waves, according to imminence of impact (i.e., the immediate,
near, and far future). Before presenting our framework for the future of social media in marketing and
its implications for research (and practice and policy), we provide a brief overview of where social
media currently stands as a major media and marketing channel.
Social media at present
The current social media landscape has two key aspects to it. First are the platforms—major and
minor, established and emerging—that provide the underlying technologies and business models
making up the industry and ecosystem. Second are the use cases; i.e., how various kinds of people and
organizations are using these technologies and for what purposes.
The rise of social media, and the manner in which it has impacted both consumer behavior and
marketing practice, has largely been driven by the platforms themselves. Some readers might recall
the “early days” of social media where social networking sites such as MySpace and Friendster were
popular. These sites were precursors to Facebook and everything else that has developed over the last
decade. Alongside these platforms, we continue to have other forms of social media such as messaging
(which started with basic Internet Relay Chat services in the 1990s and the SMS text messaging built
into early digital mobile telephone standards in the 2000s), and asynchronous online conversations
arranged around specific topics of interest (e.g., threaded discussion forums, subreddits on Reddit).
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More recently, we have seen the rise of social media platforms where images and videos replace text,
such as Instagram and Snapchat.
Across platforms, historically and to the present day, the dominant business model has involved
monetization of users (audiences) by offering advertising services to anyone wishing to reach those
audiences with digital content and marketing communications. Prior research has examined the
usefulness of social media (in its various forms) for marketing purposes. For example, work by Trusov
et al. (2009) and Stephen and Galak (2012) demonstrated that certain kinds of social interactions that
now happen on social media (e.g., “refer a friend” features and discussions in online communities) can
positively affect important marketing outcomes such as new customer acquisition and sales. More
recently, the value of advertising on social media continues to be explored (e.g., Gordon et al. 2019), as
well as how it interacts with other forms of media such as television (e.g., Fossen and
Schweidel 2016, 2019) and affects new product adoption through diffusion of information mechanisms
(e.g., Hennig-Thurau et al. 2015).
Although the rise (and fall) of various kinds of social media platforms has been important for
understanding the social media landscape, our contention is that understanding the current situation
of social media, at least from a marketing perspective, lies more in what the users do on these
platforms than the technologies or services offered by these platforms. Presently, people around the
world use social media in its various forms (e.g., news feeds on Facebook and Twitter, private
messaging on WhatsApp and WeChat, and discussion forums on Reddit) for a number of purposes.
These can generally be categorized as (1) digitally communicating and socializing with known others,
such as family and friends, (2) doing the same but with unknown others but who share common
interests, and (3) accessing and contributing to digital content such as news, gossip, and user-
generated product reviews.
All of these use cases are essentially WOM in one form or another. This, at least, is how marketing
scholars have mainly characterized social media, as discussed by Lamberton and Stephen (2016).
Indeed, online WOM has been—and, we contend, will continue to be—important in marketing (e.g., in
the meta-analysis by Babić Rosario et al. 2016 the authors found, on average, a positive correlation
between online WOM and sales). The present perspective on social media is that people use it for
creating, accessing, and spreading information via WOM to various types of others, be it known
“strong ties” or “weak ties” in their networks or unknown “strangers.” Some extant research has
looked at social media from the WOM perspective of the consequences of the transmission of WOM
(e.g., creating a Facebook post or tweeting) on others (e.g., Herhausen et al. 2019; Stephen and
Lehmann 2016), the impact of the type of WOM content shared on others’ behavior (e.g.,
VillarroelOrdenes et al. 2017; VillarroelOrdenes et al. 2018), and on the motivations that drive
consumer posting on social media, including considerations of status and self-presentation (e.g.,
Grewal et al. 2019; Hennig-Thurau et al. 2004; Hollenbeck and Kaikati 2012; Toubia and Stephen 2013;
Wallace et al. 2014).
While this current characterization of WOM appears reasonable, it considers social media only from a
communications perspective (and as a type of media channel). However, as social media matures,
broader social implications emerge. To appropriately consider the future, we must expand our
perspective beyond the narrow communicative aspects of social media and consider instead how
consumers might use it. Hence, in our vision for the future of social media in marketing in the following
sections, we attempt to present a more expansive perspective of what social media is (and will
become) and explain why this perspective is relevant to marketing research and practice.
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 Include a partnership agreement draft form for you and the intended company or business.
Please sign and date the form and fill out the form with as much detail as possible.
DISCLAIMER
The following form is provided by Lawoffice.com from West Legal Directory for informational purposes only
and is intended to be used as a guide prior to consultation with an attorney familiar with your specific legal
situation. Lawoffice.com is not engaged in rendering legal or other professional advice, and this form is not a
substitute for the advice of an attorney. If you require legal advice, you should seek the services of an attorney. ©
2000 Lawoffice.com. All rights reserved.
COMMERCIAL PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT: general form documenting an agreement to form a
partnership
PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT
Partnership agreement made on _________[date], between _________[A.B.], of
_________[address],_________[city], _________ County, _________[state], and _________[C.D.], of
_________[address],_________[city], _________ County, _________[state] (“partners”).
RECITALS
A. Partners desire to join together for the pursuit of common business goals.
B. Partners have considered various forms of joint business enterprises for their business activities.
C. Partners desire to enter into a partnership agreement as the most advantageous business form for their
mutual purposes.
In consideration of the mutual promises contained in this agreement, partners agree as follows:
ARTICLE ONE
.
NAME, PURPOSE, AND DOMICILE
The name of the partnership shall be _________. The partnership shall be conducted for the purposes of
_________. The principal place of business shall be at _________[address],_________[city], _________
County, _________[state], unless relocated by majority consent of the partners.
ARTICLE TWO
.
DURATION OF AGREEMENT
The term of this agreement shall be for _________ years, commencing on _________[date], and terminating
on _________[date], unless sooner terminated by mutual consent of the parties or by operation of the provisions
of this agreement.
ARTICLE THREE.
CLASSIFICATION AND PERFORMANCE BY PARTNERS
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A. Partners shall be classified as active partners, advisory partners, or estate partners.
An active partner may voluntarily become an advisory partner, may be required to become one irrespective of
age, and shall automatically become one after attaining the age of _________ years, and in each case shall
continue as such for _________ years unless the partner sooner withdraws or dies.
If an active partner dies, the partner’s estate will become an estate partner for _________ years. If an advisory
partner dies within _________ years of having become an advisory partner, the partner will become an estate
partner for the balance of the _________-year period.
Only active partners shall have any vote in any partnership matter.
At the time of the taking effect of this partnership agreement, all the partners shall be active partners except
_________ and _________, who shall be advisory partners.
B. An active partner, after attaining the age of _________ years, or prior to that age if the
_________[executive committee or as the case may be] with the approval of _________[two-thirds or as the
case may be] of all the other active partners determines that the reason for the change in status is bad health,
may become an advisory partner at the end of any calendar month on giving _________[number] calendar
months’ prior notice in writing of the partner’s intention to do so. The notice shall be deemed to be sufficient
if sent by registered mail addressed to the partnership at its principal office at
_________[address],_________[city], _________ County, _________[state] not less than
_________[number] calendar months prior to the date when the change is to become effective.
C. Any active partner may at any age be required to become an advisory partner at any time if the
_________[executive committee or as the case may be] with the approval of _________[two-thirds or as the
case may be] of the other active partners shall decide that the change is for any reason in the best interests of
the partnership, provided notice of the decision shall be given in writing to the partner. The notice shall be
signed by the _________[chairman or as the case may be] of the _________[executive committee or as the
case may be] or, in the event of his or her being unable to sign at the time, by another member of the
_________[executive committee or as the case may be]. The notice shall be served personally on the partner
required to change his or her status, or mailed by registered mail to the partner’s last known address. Change
of the partner’s status shall become effective as of the date specified in the notice.
D. Every active partner shall automatically and without further act become an advisory partner at the end of
the fiscal year in which the partner’s _________ birthday occurs.
E. In the event that an active partner becomes an advisory partner or dies, the partner or the partner’s estate
shall be entitled to the following payments at the following times: _________[describe].
Each active partner shall apply all of the partner’s experience, training, and ability in discharging the partner’s
assigned functions in the partnership and in the performance of all work that may be necessary or advantageous to
further the business interests of the partnership.
ARTICLE FOUR.
CONTRIBUTION
Each partner shall contribute $_____ on or before _________[date] to be used by the partnership to establish
its capital position. Any additional contribution required of partners shall only be determined and established in
accordance with Article Nineteen.
ARTICLE FIVE.
BUSINESS EXPENSES
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The rent of the buildings where the partnership business shall be carried on, and the cost of repairs and
alterations, all rates, taxes, payments for insurance, and other expenses in respect to the buildings used by the
partnership, and the wages for all persons employed by the partnership are all to become payable on the account
of the partnership. All losses incurred shall be paid out of the capital of the partnership or the profits arising from
the partnership business, or, if both shall be deficient, by the partners on a pro rata basis, in proportion to their
original contributions, as provided in Article Nineteen.
ARTICLE SIX.
AUTHORITY
No partner shall buy any goods or articles or enter into any contract exceeding the value of $_____ without
the prior consent in writing of the other partners. If any partner exceeds this authority, the other partners shall
have the option to take the goods or accept the contract on account of the partnership or to let the goods remain
the sole property of the partner who shall have obligated himself or herself.
ARTICLE SEVEN.
SEPARATE DEBTS
No partner shall enter into any bond, or become surety or cosigner, or provide security for any person,
partnership, or corporation, or knowingly condone anything by which the partnership property may be attached or
taken in execution, without the prior written consent of the other partners.
Each partner shall punctually pay the partner’s separate debts and indemnify the other partners and the capital
and property of the partnership against the partner’s separate debts and all expenses relating to such separate
debts.
ARTICLE EIGHT.
BOOKS AND RECORDS
Books of account shall be maintained by the partners, and proper entries made in the books of all sales,
purchases, receipts, payments, transactions, and property of the partnership. The books of account and all records
of the partnership shall be retained at the principal place of business as specified in Article One. Each partner
shall have free access at all times to all books and records maintained relative to the partnership business.
ARTICLE NINE.
ACCOUNTING
The fiscal year of the partnership shall be from _________[month and day] to _________[month and day] of
each year. On the _________ day of _________[month], commencing in _________[year], and on the
_________ day of _________[month] in each succeeding year, a general accounting shall be made and taken by
the partners of all sales, purchases, receipts, payments, and transactions of the partnership during the preceding
fiscal year, and of all the capital property and current liabilities of the partnership. The general accounting shall be
written in the partnership account books and signed in each book by each partner immediately after it is
completed. After the signature of each partner is entered, each partner shall keep one of the books and shall be
bound by every account, except that if any manifest error is found in an account book by any partner and shown
to the other partners within _________ months after the error shall have been noted by all of them, the error shall
be rectified.
ARTICLE TEN.
DIVISION OF PROFITS AND LOSSES
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Each partner shall be entitled to _________% of the net profits of the business, and all losses occurring in the
course of the business shall be borne in the same proportion, unless the losses are occasioned by the willful
neglect or default, and not the mere mistake or error, of any of the partners, in which case the loss so incurred
shall be made good by the partner through whose neglect or default the losses shall arise. Distribution of profits
shall be made on the _________ day of _________[month] each year.
ARTICLE ELEVEN.
ADVANCE DRAWS
Each partner shall be at liberty to draw out of the business in anticipation of the expected profits any sums
that may be mutually agreed on, and the sums are to be drawn only after there has been entered in the books of
the partnership the terms of agreement, giving the date, the amount to be drawn by the respective partners, the
time at which the sums shall be drawn, and any other conditions or matters mutually agreed on. The signatures of
each partner shall be affixed on the books of the partnership. The total sum of the advanced draw for each partner
shall be deducted from the sum that partner is entitled to under the distribution of profits as provided for in Article
Ten.
ARTICLE TWELVE.
SALARY
No partner shall receive any salary from the partnership, and the only compensation to be paid shall be as
provided in Articles Ten and Eleven.
ARTICLE THIRTEEN.
RETIREMENT
In the event any partner shall desire to retire from the partnership, the partner shall give _________ months’
notice in writing to the other partners. The continuing partners shall pay to the retiring partner at the termination
of the _________ months’ notice the value of the interest of the retiring partner in the partnership. The value shall
be determined by a closing of the books and a rendition of the appropriate profit and loss, trial balance, and
balance sheet statements. All disputes arising from such determination shall be resolved as provided in Article
Twenty.
ARTICLE FOURTEEN.
RIGHTS OF CONTINUING PARTNERS
On the retirement of any partner, the continuing partners shall be at liberty, if they so desire, to retain all trade
names designating the firm name used. Each of the partners shall sign and execute any assignments, instruments,
or papers that shall be reasonably required for effectuating an amicable retirement.
ARTICLE FIFTEEN.
DEATH OF PARTNER
In the event of the death of one partner, the legal representative of the deceased partner shall remain as a
partner in the firm, except that the exercise of this right on the part of the representative of the deceased partner
shall not continue for a period in excess of _________ months, even though under the terms of this agreement a
greater period of time is provided before the termination of this agreement. The original rights of the partners
shall accrue to their heirs, executors, or assigns.
ARTICLE SIXTEEN.
EMPLOYEE MANAGEMENT
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No partner shall hire or dismiss any person in the employment of the partnership without the consent of the
other partners, except in cases of gross misconduct by the employee.
ARTICLE SEVENTEEN.
RELEASE OF DEBTS
No partner shall compound, release, or discharge any debt that shall be due or owing to the partnership,
without receiving the full amount of the debt, unless that partner obtains the prior written consent of the other
partners to the discharge of the indebtedness.
ARTICLE EIGHTEEN.
COVENANT AGAINST REVEALING TRADE SECRETS
No partner shall, during the continuance of the partnership or for _________ years after its termination by any
means, divulge to any person not a member of the firm any trade secret or special information employed in or
conducive to the partnership business and which may come to the partner’s knowledge in the course of this
partnership, without the consent in writing of the other partners, or of the other partners’ heirs, administrators, or
assigns.
ARTICLE NINETEEN.
ADDITIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS
The partners shall not have to contribute any additional capital to the partnership to that required under
Article, except as follows: (1) each partner shall be required to contribute a proportionate share in additional
contributions if the fiscal year closes with an insufficiency in the capital account or profits of the partnership to
meet current expenses; or (2) the capital account falls below $_____ for a period of _________ months.
ARTICLE TWENTY.
ARBITRATION
If any differences shall arise between or among the partners as to their rights or liabilities under this
agreement, or under any instrument made in furtherance of the partnership business, the difference shall be
determined and the instrument shall be settled by _________[name of arbitrator], acting as arbitrator, and the
decision shall be final as to the contents and interpretations of the instrument and as to the proper mode of
carrying the provision into effect.
ARTICLE TWENTY-ONE.
ADDITIONS, ALTERATIONS, OR MODIFICATIONS
Where it shall appear to the partners that this agreement, or any terms and conditions contained in this
agreement, are in any way ineffective or deficient, or not expressed as originally intended, and any alteration or
addition shall be deemed necessary, the partners will enter into, execute, and perform all further deeds and
instruments as their counsel shall advise. Any addition, alteration, or modification shall be in writing, and no oral
agreement shall be effective.
The parties have executed this agreement at _________[designate place of execution] the day and year first
above written.
[Signatures]
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 Define how you will implement the agreement.
In order to ensure that exposure to ineligible expenditure by partners is mitigated and sufficient
documentation is received in advance from partners to enable a full grant claim process, a
Consortium Collaboration Agreement is required to be signed by all partners clearly setting out
the requirements
 Outline areas that may cause a breach.
Breach of contract: it’s a risk faced by anyone who enters a legal agreement. If you deal with volumes
of agreements (and volumes of types of agreements, from employment contracts to vendor and
customer deals), chances are good that eventually you will run into a contract that doesn’t deliver on
the terms agreed to by all parties.
Fortunately, contracts are legally-binding agreements, so when a party fails to meet their contracted
obligations, there may be a remedy. Such instances are called a breach of contract, and the first
important step to claiming your contracted rights is being able to recognize that a breach occurred.
While contracts consist of all types of legal agreements and terms, breaches themselves are classified
in just a few ways. Here are the four main classifications:
Material Breach of Contract
A material breach occurs when one party receives significantly less benefit or a significantly different
result than what was specified in a contract. Material breaches can include a failure to perform the
obligations laid out within a contract or a failure to perform contracted obligations on time. When a
material breach occurs, the other party may pursue damages related to the breach and both its direct
and indirect consequences.
Minor Breach of Contract
Also sometimes called a Partial Breach of Contract or an Immaterial Breach of Contract, a Minor
Breach of Contract refers to situations where the deliverable of the contract was ultimately received by
the other party, but the party in breach failed to fulfill some part of their obligation. In such cases, the
party that suffered the breach may only be able to pursue a legal remedy if they can prove that the
breach resulted in financial losses. A late delivery, for example, may not have a remedy if the breached
party cannot show that the delay resulted in financial consequences.
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Anticipatory Breach of Contract
A breach need not actually occur for the responsible party to be liable. In the case of an Anticipatory
Breach, an actual breach has not yet occurred, but one of the parties has indicated that they will not
fulfill their obligations under the contract. This can occur if the breaching party explicitly notifies the
other party that they will not fulfill their obligations, but such a claim could also be based on actions
that indicate one of the parties does not intend to or will not be able to deliver.
Actual Breach of Contract
An Actual Breach of Contract refers to a breach that has already occurred, meaning the breaching
party has either refused to fulfill their obligations by the due date or they have performed their duties
incompletely or improperly.
When a breach does occur, there are several types of remedies the other party may pursue. These
include compensatory damages to address direct economic losses stemming from the breach, and
consequential losses, which are indirect losses that go beyond the value of the contract itself but are
the result of the breach.
 Describe how you intend to keep track of the partnership / alliance and how you will monitor
and provide feedback to both parties.
To overcome these difficulties, companies must assess the performance of their alliances on three
levels, each focusing on different aspects of the problem and prompting distinct managerial responses.
At the first level, every alliance should be individually assessed to establish how it is performing and
whether the parent company needs to intervene. At the second level, a company should periodically
search for performance patterns across the portfolio—a process that often leads to adjustments in the
types of deals a company pursues and sometimes to additional investments in a drive to build alliance-
related skills. At the third level, once a company better understands how its portfolio is performing, it
can conduct a top-down review of overall strategy to ensure not only that its alliance portfolio is
configured for optimal performance, but also that it has ranked new opportunities in a clear order of
priority. The following excerpt focuses on the performance of individual alliances.3
Developing a detailed view of the economics of an alliance is indispensable to measuring its
performance. This measurement should go well beyond the usual cash flow metrics to include
transfer-pricing benefits, benefits outside the scope of the deal (for instance, sales of related
products), the value of options created by the alliance, as well as start-up and ongoing management
costs (Exhibit 1). This information is vital for managers to evaluate deals up front and to monitor their
continuing performance.
Exhibit 1
Get to know your alliance.
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For example, one company in the power industry calculated the embedded option value of a potential
alliance to commercialize a critical new technology, evaluating the odds of different possible outcomes
and the associated payoffs for each. Its calculation showed that for the given alliance the firm had a 10
percent chance of creating $1 billion in annual income within three years, a 20 percent chance of
creating a modestly successful business producing $10 million to $30 million in annual income, a 60
percent chance of losing $10 million to $30 million, and a 10 percent chance of losing more than $200
million. This profile of potential option value was extremely sensitive to assumptions regarding
technology and construction costs, leading the company to closely monitor the alliance’s early
performance, while reserving the right to cut off funding in the event that technical progress slowed.
Likewise, one biotechnology company developed explicit values for the potential learning benefits
from a planned development and marketing alliance with a large pharmaceutical company. This
exercise provided the information that ultimately pushed the firm to choose one partner over another
and led it to closely monitor the benefits of the alliance, eventually allowing the firm to “migrate” into
new capabilities.
Having formed an alliance with a clear and integrated view of the economics in mind, a company must
develop, within 30 days of the launch, a scorecard to track the venture’s performance. Partners must
decide whether to share a single scorecard, to run separate scorecards, or to use a combination of the
two. For a joint venture with its own P&L, a single scorecard is often possible. For most other alliances,
the combination approach works best. Each partner can supplement a shared scorecard with
additional metrics that track progress against goals that aren’t shared by the other partners. This
approach also enables each partner to devise internal metrics that allow it to compare the
performance of an alliance with the performance of business activities outside the alliance or to other,
similar alliances.
It is essential, both at the alliance and the parent level, to take a balanced view of performance. To
achieve such a balance, we have found it useful to include four dimensions of performance fitness:
financial, strategic, operational, and relationship. Financial and strategic metrics show how the alliance
is performing and whether it is meeting its goals—but may not provide enough insight into exactly
what, if anything, isn’t going well. Operational and relationship metrics can help uncover the first signs
of trouble and reveal the causes of problems. Together, the four dimensions of performance create an
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integrated picture that has proved invaluable to the relatively few companies, such as Siebel Systems,
that have used them to measure the health of alliances (Exhibit 2).
Exhibit 2
Siebel Systems’ alliance scorecard
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1. Financial fitness: Metrics such as sales revenues, cash flow, net income, return on investment, and
the expected net present value of an alliance measure its financial fitness. Most alliances should also
monitor progress in reducing overlapping costs, achieving purchasing discounts, or increasing
revenues. In addition, financial fitness can include partner-specific metrics such as transfer-pricing
revenues and sales of related products by the parent companies. At one international oil industry joint
venture, the partners tracked not only revenues and consolidation synergies on a quarterly basis, but
also the costs of goods sold to and from the parents, as well as estimates of profitability on those
parent-related transactions.
2. Strategic fitness: Nonfinancial metrics such as market share, new-product launches, and customer
loyalty can help executives measure the strategic fitness of a deal; other metrics could, for example,
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track the competitive positioning and access to new customers or technologies resulting from it.
Devising strategic metrics can take imagination. The international semiconductor research consortium
SEMATECH, for instance, tracks the number of employees from member companies who are working
on its research initiatives in order to assess whether it is transferring knowledge to its partners.
3. Operational fitness: The number of customers visited and staff members recruited, the quality of
products and manufacturing throughput are examples of operational fitness metrics that call for
explicit goals linked to the performance reviews and compensation of individuals. For example,
executives at one health care company define operationally-fit alliances as those hitting 60 to 80
percent of their key operating milestones. Any figure higher than 80 percent indicates that the goals
weren’t sufficiently ambitious.
4. Relationship fitness: Questions about the cultural fit and trust between partners, the speed and
clarity of their decision making, the effectiveness of their interventions when problems arise, and the
adequacy with which they define and deliver their contributions all fall under the heading of
relationship fitness. To measure it, Siebel Systems developed a sophisticated partner-satisfaction
survey, sent each quarter to key managers of alliance partners, that contains more than 80 questions
about issues such as alliance management and partners’ loyalty to Siebel. The company uses this
information to spot problems and to develop detailed action plans to address them.
The weight placed on each type of metric and the amount of detail it includes depend on the size and
aims of the alliance. A consolidation joint venture whose main goal is to reduce costs, for instance,
should focus heavily on financial and operational metrics. But managers of an alliance entering a new
market expect negative financial returns in the early stages and should give more weight to strategic
goals such as increasing market share and penetrating distribution channels. Smaller, short-term
alliances might have simple scorecards with only four or five metrics; larger ventures with substantial
assets or revenues deserve something more detailed.
Scorecard results provide important clues to what might be going wrong with an alliance, but
uncovering the true problem often requires further investigation. For example, a large media company
found that the hundreds of millions of dollars it had invested in alliances were at risk when close
scrutiny revealed that five of its ten most important deals were losing money. In addition, two joint
ventures with an international media company were found to have been troubled by flawed deal
structures from the start. Further probing found that three unprofitable alliances could be
renegotiated, saving $23 million a year, and that redefining each joint venture partner’s contributions
and responsibilities could save another $45 million a year. Subsequently, the company established a
corporate-level alliance unit to keep a critical eye on all of its ventures.
At a time when alliances are increasingly important, continuing to ignore their performance is simply
not an option. Instead, managers should systematically measure the performance of each individual
alliance to ensure that the maximum value is derived and management is able to intervene when a
deal veers off track. Experience has proved that the effort pays substantial dividends.
 Describe how to assess performance of all parties to an agreement against organizational and
program objectives and expected results, and address variances
Building off of some of the concepts of organizational effectiveness already covered, let’s look at a few
ways to measure organizational performance.
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Achievement of Organizational Objectives
One of the most common ways to evaluate organizational effectiveness and performance is how well a
business achieves its stated goals.
This approach would evaluate factors such as:
 How successfully an organization meets its targets
 Expenditures
 Bottom-line profits
 Innovation
 Growth
Some models of organizational effectiveness, as mentioned, revolve exclusively around goal-setting
and achievement.
Others include other metrics such as those covered below.
Business Process Efficiency
The efficiency of individual business processes can also be used to gauge organizational performance.
Business processes, units, and functions can be measured by, for instance:
 Speed
 Cost-efficiency
 Results and productivity
 Agility and adaptability
Measuring every business area or function can help organizations spot inefficiencies as well as growth
opportunities.
Results of Business Investments and Projects
Another measure of organizational performance is how effectively and efficiently an organization can
execute business projects.
High-level metrics for evaluating individual projects can include:
 Financial returns
 Project results
 Project efficiency
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 Projected costs versus actual costs, measured against the derived benefits
As with the other performance indicators covered here, it is important to keep these measurements in
the context of a model of organizational effectiveness.
Though some measurements are more valuable than others, no single metric should be used as a
catch-all to determine performance.
Marketplace Performance
How well a business performs in the marketplace can also demonstrate is effectiveness and
performance.
Areas to measure can include:
 Market share
 Innovation
 Growth
 Valuation
 Profits
Among other things.
Alignment
Organizational alignment can refer to the synchronization between:
 Different departments
 Individual employees and their department or their team
 The workforce’s actions and the organization’s mission
 The organization’s behavior and its mission
 An organization and its marketplace
The more aligned that workers and business units are with the organization, the better an organization
will perform.
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 Describe how to make changes to agreements as required according to organizational policies
and procedures
Make sure your business has the time, resources and personnel to implement the policy.
There is no point in adopting a policy which aspires to the best practice possible if your business
cannot realistically adopt the procedures set out.
This is the development stage of the policy and procedure done. Once you have completed these
steps, you will have the policies and procedures your company needs to maintain a healthy and safe
workplace.
But the next stage is just as important as the development stage, the implementation stage…
Don’t get too excited that you have developed the policies and procedures because without
implementing them correctly, they won’t be of any use to you.
Step 5: Publicise the policies and procedures
Put your policies and procedures in writing and make them available to your entire workforce.
If possible, keep all your policies and procedures in a single manual, and make copies readily available
to all employees.
Tip: Safety documents should also be published on the company’s intranet if you have one.
Step 6: Train all employees in policies and procedures
You have an obligation to provide adequate information, instruction, supervision and training to your
employees.
Ensure that new employees and contractors are trained and familiar with company policies and
procedures, and that existing staff receive appropriate training, e.g. annual refresher courses.
Policies and procedures should also be reiterated and discussed with staff regularly at team meetings
to ensure that employees remain aware of the importance & advantages of the policies and
procedures.
Tip: It is a good idea to have all employees and contractors sign off after they have read, understood
and agree to comply with your workplace policies. You should also keep records of training and
induction. Make sure that you record attendees and details of training content in case an employee
fails to sign a training record.
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Step 7: Be consistent in your policy implementation
Supervision of your workplace to ensure that the policies and procedures are being properly
implemented by all employees is essential.
Follow-up to ensure that any failure to follow the policy or procedure is addressed.
Specify that full compliance with the stated requirements is needed to ensure a safe workplace.
After this, any deliberate breaches of policies or procedures must be treated seriously, and dealt with
immediately and consistently.
All supervisors and managers must ‘lead by example’ in implementing policies and procedures. It is
crucial that all OHS expectations are demonstrated through modelling and leadership at all levels of
management.
If managers condone practices which do not fall within the policy, it could be argued that disciplinary
action against an employee who fails to follow the policy is unfair. The consequence of any deliberate
breach should be appropriate to the severity of the breach, whether it be:
 counselling;
 disciplinary action (e.g. a warning); or
 in serious circumstances, dismissal.
Step 8: Review all policies and procedures regularly
Policies and procedures must be reviewed periodically.
When any changes occur, ensure your policies and procedures remain relevant and effective. For
example, a change may occur when a business purchases a new piece of machinery, starts using a new
chemical or adopts a new production method. Any such changes mean that relevant procedures
should be reviewed.
Tip: The review cycle will depend on the circumstances and document type, but it is a good idea to
review policies at least every 2 years, e.g. an OHS training policy may only need to be reviewed every 3
years, but a chemical handling procedure should be reviewed more often due to the level of hazard
involved.
Implement a document management system that:
 triggers reviews;
 notes the dates of change; and
 involves interactive revision.
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All employees and contractors need to be made aware of the changes to policy and procedure when
they occur.
Step 9: Enforce the workplace policies and procedures
Once your policies and procedures have been implemented, they need to be enforced. Make sure that
you approach this consistently as this is an important factor in being able to discipline a worker for a
breach of policy.
 Reference
When a reference is requested, the organization will respond by letter. No references will be given
verbally, on the telephone, by fax or by e-mail. The reference will contain only information, and will
not state personal opinions about the employee’s performance or conduct. The reference will include
information about:
 The start and finish date of the employee’s employment with the organization
 The employee’s job title or designation
 A brief description of the employee’s key duties and level of responsibility
 Other jobs that the employee held within the organization prior to the job he or she held at the
date of termination, and the start/and finish dates of these jobs
A statement confirming the circumstances of the termination of the employee’s employment, ie
whether it occurred because of the employee’s resignation, dismissal, redundancy or expiry of a fixed
term contract.
Only information that is known to the employee will be included in the reference.
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