In this guest post, Mike Leonetti, Managing Director at BDO shares insights from his experience and survey results on how alliance management teams can improve communications with executives.
Executive support or a lack of it can have a significant impact on the fate of alliances. Especially as alliances continue to grow in strategic importance, securing this support is key.
The 2023 BDO State of Alliance Management Report found that “leaders and alliance professionals […] expect the contribution of alliances to increase over the next five years” and, “they expect significant growth to come from […] partnerships.”*
Strategic alliances and partner ecosystems are therefore key to organizational growth, especially in an economy, which according to J.P. Morgan, “is likely to decelerate in 2024”**. A successful alliance is similar to a well-performing enterprise and requires resources, organization, and communication.
BDO 2023 research on alliance management highlights 10 key areas that can lead to alliance underperformance that could contribute to that 50% alliance failure rate.
Several of these key areas could be mitigated with improved executive communication. Heads of alliance management need to create visibility for their teams' work and their team's impact. They need to garner support from executives to steer their alliances to success. Executives tend to engage sporadically with events as opposed to a proactive approach and engaging with the organization’s alliances. Many C-Suite executives have a limited understanding of alliances and the alliance teams' work and impact, a concerning problem given the organization’s reliance on alliances for future sustainable growth.
- Lack of internal alignment: C-Suite executive communication can address a lack of internal alignment by providing consistent, transparent updates and strategic direction. Regularly sharing the organization's vision, goals, and performance metrics ensures everyone understands the current state and priorities, fostering alignment across all levels of the organization. For this downstream executive communication to be effective, it requires up-to-date upstream insights from the alliance management team to make data-driven decisions.
- Lack of sufficiently robust joint governance: Governance could often be strengthened by clearly defining and communicating alliance priorities and goals with the executive team. Regular updates can ensure all partners, both internal and external are aligned and understand their roles, fostering collaborative decision-making and accountability, which is crucial for setting and achieving shared objectives.
- Inadequately defined business plan: If points 1 and 2 are deficient, then having a good business plan becomes challenging. A business plan also needs to be maintained and updated as time passes to ensure the goals of the plan remain relevant. Continual communication with the C-Suite (and all stakeholders) can enhance a business plan by providing clear, bi-lateral strategic guidance. Articulating objectives (and updating them when they change), setting clear expectations, and tracking progress, can support alignment and understanding across the organization.
How to bridge the gap?
Alliance managers can use best practices and leverage alliance management software to address common challenges and ensure better alignment between the alliance management team and the C-Suite.
Here are three key takeaways to help bridge this gap:
- Ensure internal alignment: Provide consistent, transparent updates on the organization’s vision, goals, and performance metrics. Regularly share real-time insights from the alliance management team to support data-driven decisions by senior leaders. Be careful not to add to the already admin heavy alliance management role. Invest in digital platforms such as allianceboard, a purpose-built alliance management platform to simplify communication and standardize data across the entire portfolio, ensuring consistency in the information delivered to the C-Suite.
- Strengthen joint governance: Clearly define and communicate alliance priorities and goals with the executive team. Regular updates ensure all partners understand their roles, fostering collaborative decision-making and accountability. Regular updates can be automated and personalized to the targeted audience.
- Maintain an updated business plan: The alliance community is familiar with the importance of setting the north star objectives. Keep that star firmly in the north by utilizing strategic guidance from the C-Suite that is confidently based on accurate information.
Use alliance management software to articulate and quickly update objectives, set and agree expectations, and track progress to ensure alignment and understanding across the organization and with partners.
Interested to learn more?
Contact us today and learn how you can elevate your alliance management team’s influence and impact with allianceboard; contact@allianceboard.com.
References:
* ADV-MC-REPRINT-The-State-of-Alliance-Management.pdf (bdo.com) – Page 2 - How Is the Use of Partnerships Evolving?
** 2024 Economic Outlook: Insights & Trends | J.P. Morgan (jpmorgan.com)