Avoiding Failure in Technology Partnerships

The advent of the “solutions-centric ecosystem” means software vendors must focus on four core competencies in order to build successful partnerships.

By R. “Ray” Wang and Merv Adrian, Forrester Research

As business technology providers move to expand their solutions-centric ecosystems, strategists must intensely focus on partnerships across the value chain. The sad truth is that few technology partnerships are as successful as their participants wish. Most failures result from poor alignment between parties on key objectives and metrics.

Forrester suggests 21 questions to drive that alignment across four core competencies: building technology and product strategy, aligning go-to-market (GTM) activities, investing in a support ecosystem, and executing the action plan. This excerpt looks at the most common causes of partnership failure, and recommends areas of focus for software vendors aiming to ensure the long-term success of their ecosystem partnerships.

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Parting Thought

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless."
–Mother Teresa

Courtesy of Malcolm Kusher, The Kushner Group