1. Have you got a clear, consistent vision?

Many companies start talking before they have really worked out what they want to say. And, often, different groups are given different messages. You will create confusion if you tell Wall Street that you plan to grow direct sales to 40 percent within two years, and yet inform your intermediaries that direct will never be more than a trial!

You can't be clear and consistent until you have got real internal agreement first. Often, big changes are sabotaged by local managers, who don't believe the company is really going to move from a to b. Ultimately, you risk unveiling the state of civil war inside your company to the outside world.

Clarity is also vital. The architects of a new strategy, those who have lived and breathed it on a daily basis, have a horrible tendency to assume that what they have developed is as clear as crystal. It may be as clear as mud to those who need to implement it.

2. Put the right rewards in place - internally and externally...

Almost invariably, I find that companies which want to change behaviour don't make the necessary changes to rewards.

So you want your account managers to spend more time building relationships with key partners? Are you rewarding them for doing that, or are they still paid on sales?

Maybe you want your intermediaries to order online. Again, unless they are truly convinced that this will save them time and money, they won't budge.

3. Have you worked out who is really going to be affected?

All too often, companies focus on those for whom any change will be unalloyed good news. You need to sit down and systematically go through all the stakeholders - how they will be affected and to what degree. This sort of impact analysis will almost invariably uncover new groups you need to address.

Try charting the degree of impact on their business on one axis and whether the news is good or bad for them on the other. Those for whom the change will be high impact, bad news need a lot more time than those for whom it is low impact, good news .

This is also the time to decide who should communicate what and how. It is all too easy to send an indian, when you should be sending a chief!

Your mantra should be to get the right message to the right partners at the right time through the right medium.

4. Are you communicating - or just broadcasting?

A big PR campaign, brochures, a conference - companies can invest millions in telling partners of changes. If they don't allow for two-way communications, then they will still get it horribly wrong.

Partners have to be allowed to come back, to ask questions, to challenge you. Build this into everything you do. Commit to responding to emails on a particular subject within two hours. Build break out workshops into your conferences.

This means budgeting for the heavy expenditure of that most valuable commodity - time!