It is not hard to see the appeal of an international agreement with a major intermediary or influencer.  Such an alliance or partnership can deliver access to a host of new clients in a dozen countries.

But international alliances are easier to imagine than to implement.  All too often, they achieve nothing, apart from draining money and management time.  Managing Pan-European Partnerships and Alliances was the subject of September’s Routes to Market Association conference.  Here we report on the presentations and workshops.  How can you best formulate successful strategies for global or Pan-European alliances?  How are such alliances best implemented?  And what are the pitfalls? 

Over the course of the day a structure emerged for dealing with international partnerships.  This could be summed up as clarity, predictability, trust, commitment, and resources leading to results.  Clarity about goals, capabilities and roles is vital if a company is to achieve the predictable behaviour that is essential to winning the trust of partners.  And it is only by winning this trust that you can get the commitment of senior managers on both sides and the resources to create results.  Here we look at how this virtuous circle works.

Clarity is vital
All the speakers agreed that it is essential that suppliers are very clear about what they want from an alliance.  And these objectives have to be based on a real understanding of the structure, culture, systems and business plan of the partner. 

A failure to do this spells disaster.  For example, Julian Dent, chief executive at management consultancy VIA International, reckons that many IT companies rush into global alliances only to find that their partner is not really international at all.
 
This is a pitfall for many industries.  A major electrical supplier has found that retailers that appear to be Pan-European are in fact run at national level.  Enterprise software vendors often find that the major IT consultancies are a chain of national fiefdoms.

Getting international partnerships and alliances wrong is also extremely expensive.  Typically, suppliers give away extra margin or promise extra help in exchange for such agreements.  This can cause huge problems, says Dent. "A large reseller might use the agreement to move into new markets.  It may only be shipping a few tens of units, but it will demand the same terms that it gets in the national markets it dominates." Give it, and you are certain to alienate loyal local partners.