Last month I was in Orlando, presenting in the keynote at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference.
At the event, which happens just once a year, key executives from Microsoft and a few selected partners, including Vmob, shared their vision for commercial success in today’s technology-driven world.
There were more than 15,000 attendees at WPC this year; many more people will view content from the conference online.
As anyone who was present can tell you, Microsoft is a company that places significant emphasis and huge value on its partner ecosystem. It has to, of course.
Because Microsoft’s success is built on the strength of its partners’ ability to sell, integrate and service Microsoft products.
Partners turn up at WPC every year to reconnect with Microsoft and with each other and to gain insights that will propel their businesses forward, enabling them to deliver best in class customer results.
More than once last month I found myself thinking about what makes a successful partnership, and what that means for our business.
The most successful and long-lasting partnerships tend to be those perfectly symbiotic relationships that result in equal benefit for each partner.
That kind of business relationship doesn’t happen accidentally.
Successful partners take time to understand each other’s business and specifically the business model that makes them successful.
Partnerships
Contrary to popular belief, successful partnerships aren’t always about shared goals. Business partners often have quite diverse objectives.
The thing that they all share in common, however, is that in the normal course of doing business they generate a significant amount of extra revenue for each other.
If one partner is forced to change their business model too much or if one partner benefits more than the other, then partnerships start to disintegrate.
For this reason it is really important, if you want a long lasting and successful partnership, to ensure that the DNA of your business is completely aligned with the business DNA of your prospective partner.
That’s the main reason people attend WPC, to hear first hand the vision for Microsoft’s business direction and make sure that their business DNA remains successfully aligned to that of their partners.