Forming strategic alliances requires the same sort of planning that your architecture, engineering or construction firm would put into your own strategic planning.

There are a number of major benefits of forming a strategic alliance. When planned correctly and the parties commit the right level of leadership and resources, firms can win work previously out of reach.

The strategic alliance is a key strategy with many of the same elements as a strategic plan, including—

• purpose and culture

• marketing and business development

• project delivery

• information technology

• finance

• human resources

• information technology

These are not “lite” versions of formal business partnerships; alliances have complexities of their own, including culture clash, multiple- firm agendas, sudden expansion of capabilities, features, sales techniques, and manpower can overwhelm the teams involved in making the alliance model really work if every aspect of  the proposed model has not been well thought out in advance of its launch. A successful strategic plan overcomes those complexities by addressing the following:

• Establishing a purpose: identifying what the marriage of your firms—your alliance will bring to the marketplace to provide value for clients beyond what a traditional business model is capable of providing

• Establishing measurable interim and long-term goals

• Defining the strategies that will achieve the goals

• Incorporating approaches to managing strategic change over time

• Assigning responsibility and accountability for making it happen

• Distinguishing “alliance” services and products from each member-firm’s own individual services and products

• Involving the member-firms’ people in setting goals and priorities in such a way as to win their support and begin leveraging the new alliance ‘tool’ in their day-to-day pursuits and activities

• Letting member-firms’ employees know how their firms will change, grow and improve via the alliance

• Establishing standards technology standards for maintaining, exchanging, and collaborating on documents

Just as a one-day strategic planning meeting serves an organization, a one-day “planning retreat” can do the same for an alliance. 

This article is an excerpt from excerpt from PSMJ's complimentary ebook Strategic Alliances for Small Firms: A Path to Profitability, a concise overview of the essential information on what it takes to have a successful alliance in today's economy, directly from PSMJ’s business development experts.