Strategic partnerships allow businesses to cross-promote, build on each other’s strengths, fill in gaps in areas of growth, share intelligence, attract new customers and expand business offerings to existing customers.

Businesses regularly seek partnerships with complementary capabilities to gain access to new markets and channels, share intellectual property or infrastructure or to simply reduces risks.

The more complex the business environment becomes-for instance as new technologies emerge or as innovation cycles get faster- the more such relationships make sense.

The better businesses get at managing individual relationships, the more likely it is that they will become partners of choice hence able to build entire portfolios of practical and value enabling partnerships.

Most strategic partnerships agree to share resources and create win-win scenarios for all partners involved-including their respective clients. Businesses share revenue, utilize partnerships to raise brand awareness or customer trust through partnering with better established businesses.

Strategic partnerships are increasingly becoming a vital element of business’ corporate growth strategies with executives setting a side percentages of assets to developing and maintaining partnerships. In the global economy, strategic partnerships are helping business pool knowledge resources, diversify their product lines and more.

Some advantages of strategic partnerships include;

New customers;

Strategic partnerships provide an opportunity to increase market share and market access hence one of the leading reasons why businesses seek partnerships- a great percentage of businesses list acquiring new customers as a main reason of going into partnerships.

Wider Geographic Reach;

Expanding a business geographic reach is among the top reasons why businesses seek to enter into partnerships. This is tightly linked to accessing new customers and revenue as geographic expansions is often a first step towards new growth.

Increase Revenue;

A prospective partner can bring an infusion of capital as well as strategic connection into the business. This may help a business attract potential investors and raise more capital to grow the business.

The right business partner may also enhance a business’ ability to borrow money to finance the growth of the business. It helps to keep these money issues in mind as part of the criteria in evaluating a potential partner.

Businesses go into partnership to increase revenue-businesses view revenue increase as a primary advantage of successful partnerships.

Strategic partners align their strategic objectives and their resources to complement each other and in turn, new revenue streams.

Expand product lines;

Businesses go into partnerships with an aim of expanding their product lines through which, they get to expand and grow their respective businesses. Businesses often collaborate to gain access to the materials, knowledge or markets they need to expand their product lines.

New Technology and sharing resources;

Strategic partnerships are often an ideal means to access new technology without expending resources hence a great reason businesses consider going into strategic partnerships.

Along the same lines of accessing new technology, businesses also enter strategic partnerships as a means to pool resources as an effective means of advancing their business growth and path to innovation.

Expertise and Knowledge;

Strategic partnerships provide access to a wider range of expertise and knowledge or complementary skills to aid drive business growth. Through going into partnerships, businesses get to bridge their expertise and knowledge gaps.

A partnership is one of the easiest ways to conduct business with other business entities. However, it is important that businesses are responsible for the losses and liabilities of the business.

For businesses to run successful partnerships, there are regulations and legislative requirements imposed on partnerships. Its therefore imperative for the various partners to seek legal advice about the obligations in relation to the partnership beforehand.

Further, it is advisable to have a partnership structures in place to govern the terms of the partnership-including profit and liability sharing.

Strategic partnerships is therefore a surefire way to grow businesses without hiring a new department, allocating money into the research and development or even investing in new equipment for growth.