Advisory No 15 - Partner Smarter Grow Faster

A growing international business needs new staff and lots of them.  

It needs to have tried-and-tested suppliers to provide the products and services that it can’t deliver itself and it needs them fast.  

And it needs strategic partners to help extend its geographic reach and to build a network of customers that will deliver on the business plan.

What these three categories have in common is that every growing business is reliant on people and partners to deliver its strategic growth plans.
  

For start-ups and developing businesses, having the right team around us is critical to our growth success and it’s definitely not the time to cut corners.

As managers it is likely that we are busier than our peers of 10 or 20 years ago and the speed at which we are required to make important business decisions is accelerating. When we are working in start-ups, this pressure can be ten-fold.

It's time to call in the experts to support us.

However busy we are, we must appoint any new relationships with care, whether they are our staff, suppliers or strategic partners.  This is because our own success is ultimately reliant on the partners that we choose to represent us. 

Our partners success is our success and their failure is ours to own.

It’s tempting, but we should never make our decisions based solely on the candidate that we know best or is closest to hand.  In the rush to start-up and grow our businesses we often quickly grab our former colleagues and partners as a short cut to establishing a new team.  We have to be careful here.

We don't achieve something different for our business, simply by replicating an old model so it’s important that our partnership appointments are regularly given due-diligence and tested against alternatives in the market.

No decision is a valid decision until it can be compared against alternatives. A choice of one is not a choice at all.

It's always wise to properly review alternatives as the 'sanity test' to your preferred partnership choice and it's is time worth investing as it provides clarity, validates your decision and defends your position in the event of any conflict.  Most importantly, you develop a balanced approach as you are forced to consider the negatives as well as the positives of your preferred partnership choice.

When we take the time to fully review and make informed decisions on our business partners there’s every chance that growth will come stronger and faster than if we select solely from our inner circle.

Once established, it's also critical to review our partnership arrangements regularly to ensure that they remain effective.  

We regularly work with businesses who have set up partnerships to manage their interstate and international operations.  On closer review, we discover that they are not always delivering the maximum contribution to our client's business.  We recommend an annual review and health check for all partnership arrangements to ensure that they are performing to expectation.  There's always room for improvement.

The pressures of establishing, growing and maintaining your business are tremendous but be careful to take the time to establish the right partnership network as part of your business development strategy.

Be open minded to change. 

The Advisory Partnership assists its clients with business development and operational strategy, delivering outputs that are scalable to meet the challenges of technological change and International growth.

Post by James Douglas

www.theadvisorypartnership.com

More from us...

Over Promise, Under Deliver
Partner Smarter, Grow Faster
International Strategy - How to Get an A in Geography

TAP Case Notes 2 - India - Business Review & Diagnostic

Client         Global Advertising Tech Business

Service     Business Review, Product Review & Diagnostic 

Location  Mumbai, India 2014

Result       Reset Strategy Delivering 20% Growth 

Background

Our client was a technology business that supports the advertising industry with advertising distribution and asset management services.  Its Indian operation was a start-up, completing its first year of operations focusing on TV commercial distribution and managing clients from media agencies and post-production companies. The business was failing to achieve its targets; it was third to market with two strong competitors; one local and one, a long established international business.  Lack of active customers and low price yield meant that the operation had yet to break even and was becoming a critical drain on our client's global resources. 

Challenge

The Indian business was trading at 25% of the monthly revenue budget and was being supported by head office at $250k per quarter. We were appointed to to provide a diagnostic on why the business was failing to win customers and why the price had been driven to levels 80% below our client's global average. We were further asked to make recommendations on either the closure of the operation or to continue trading at a loss for strategic reasons. 

Approach

Our approach was to base ourselves on site to develop an intimate understanding of the local business and its potential.  We spent time reviewing daily operations and interviewing customers, broadcasters and staff.  We knew there was a strong and highly qualified management team so our job was to close the knowledge-gap between the international strategic plan and the operational reality.  

The key problem we found was with the practical usability of the product unique to the Indian market.  Our analysis revealed that our client's inability to provide bespoke systems for broadcasters had led to TV stations becoming advocates for the competition.  Our client then commissioned us prepare a gap analysis and business case to revise their product interface with changes specific to India.  We cross-referenced our work and found relevance for our changes in other operations in SE Asia and the Middle East.  This further supported our business case and product development was commissioned for 2015.

Results

Our work revealed that the client's business plan had not adequately considered operational processes unique to India and that they had underestimated their competition. Our competitive review revealed a bias towards local businesses so we recommended that they partner with their local Indian competitor to provide the best blend of local insights with their international experience in the sector.  This recommendation effectively removes a competitor, reduces price pressure and provides a real benefit to the Indian customer with a system adapted to their specific requirements.  

Following our briefing the client has decided to retain a strategic investment in their India.

Once the product changes are implemented, it is expected that their Indian market share will rise from 20 to 40% and through partnership they intend to they will be able to fund a broader range of services to the Indian advertising community.  

Our success was to provide the client with market knowledge that they did not previously have, giving them a detailed understanding of their Indian operation and enabling them to make more informed decisions in future.

The Advisory Partnership assists its clients with operational strategy and structural change, delivering outputs that are scaleable to meet the challenges of technological change and international growth.

Post by James Douglas

www.theadvisorypartnership.com

What we have learned  in India, SE Asia and Latin American are captured in more detail the following articles:

Upscale your International Growth
Over Promise, Under Deliver
Partner Smarter, Grow Faster
International Strategy - How to Get an A in Geography

Advisory #14 - International Growth Cheatsheet

As every business matures it seeks to extend its reach, seeking new territories for its products and services. 

You may be interested in opening your business in another state or you may be interested in expanding internationally or to emerging markets.  However, if 86% of businesses fail to achieve their strategic plans (Harvard Business Review), what are the skills that you are missing or need to be aware of to ensure that you can grow your business successfully into new and emerging markets. Just as importantly, what are the dangers you need to avoid?

Based on our experience in LATAM, Asia and the US, The Advisory Partnership has prepared a list of skills, essential to your interstate or international expansion.

Project Management

You need to be efficient.  You need to have a tight project team with clear roles so that you can make decisions quickly and change course if operational realities reveal that you need to head in a direction other than you anticipated.  

Your project needs clear leadership and a decision-making hierarchy but be careful not to over-manage; too many layers of management will stifle decision-making. Your start-up needs to be able to act dynamically and respond nimbly to situations as they develop.

Research Skills

Find out everything you can about your target market. Make no assumptions.  There are no short cuts here.  Working in isolation from your desk at head office will not be enough to get the feel of an international market and to understand how it works on the ground.  You have to get on a plane and spend some time there. Don’t spend a day; spend a week or a month if you can.  It will pay you back with speed to market; delivering faster revenues and fewer expensive mistakes.

Networking Skills

You need to find businesses and individuals that have entered similar markets and learn about their experiences.  You need friends who’ll tell you how it really is.  What worked for them and what didn’t? 

How a market presents itself externally will be very different to how it operates internally.  You need to know the difference.   Find a local consultant who can partner with your own project manager to help you understand the market intimately and be sure that your consultant has the credentials and contacts to deliver the connections that you don’t have on your own.

People Skills

Your business will rise or fall on the success of your people so you need to have the right team before launch. A key appointment to your new market should be an HR manager or agent and they need to be a key part of your start-up leadership team.

Hire people who have done what you do before; people who are already credible and trusted in your area of operation and who’ll be able to hit the ground running with your product and service. Hire the best people you can within the available budget and don't make any false economies.  Low cost labour with limited experience will slow you down, they will require induction and training.  Start-up is not the time to be moving slowly.  


When you start to make appointments, hire a mix of local employees and trusted experts from your business.  This way you’ll have the best combination of skills to deliver not only your company’s expertise but you’ll also have local credibility and a built-in understanding of cultural sensitivities.  

Structure your operation in this way to help you successfully navigate sales and operational issues in the local markets. 

Multi-Tasking.  

As you expand, it's very likely that you’ll be performing a local and international role at the same time.  This means you’ll be working on your new markets at the same time as your home operation, probably across different time zones. This is exhausting so you need to be highly organised for it to be sustainable.  Structure your meetings formally to a tight, action-based agenda and allow for separate informal catch ups to understand any day-to-day personal challenges. 

Culture

There’s no such thing as a unilateral 'global' approach because you need to adjust your behaviour for different types of interaction with different locations and work to overcome language and cultural barriers.  Employment expectations, language capability, education and culture may all be markedly different to how you normally operate and you will have to make some allowances in your process to ensure that you get the best from your team.  

There is your way of operating and the local way, the right way for each new market will be somewhere in the middle and you need to find that sweet spot. Your success is dependent on working out which is the right approach and managing accordingly. 

Operational Excellence 

Once you’ve hired your local talent, you must now surround them with everything that is great about your organisation.  Send in an "SWAT Team" from your own business and surround your new team with all the skill, passion and enthusiasm that has made your business great at home.  Avoid a fly-in-fly-out approach.  Give them some time to bond and to really share the essence of what your business is all about. The time and energy you put into helping your new team out now will save you in the long run. 

Product Management

You may have a product or service that has been hugely successful in your own market but you still need to be sure that there aren’t regional variations that may completely negate the effectiveness of that product in a new environment. Be prepared that your product or service may need to be adapted to cater for the requirements of the new market.  Do your research and test the market in advance before committing to a costly launch of an inappropriate product. 

Technology 

Make no assumptions about technology; particularly if your product is within the digital or online sector.  Public internet and business connectivity are not a level playing field worldwide. If you are entering emerging markets particularly with a new technology product, be mindful that traditional processes can still dominate due to poor Internet performance in some countries.

Growing your business into new markets can be one of the most rewarding things you can do in your career but keep in mind that whatever new market you enter, it’s is not your home territory. You need to continually compare your strategy against operational reality to ensure you have the best set up for success.

The Advisory Partnership assists its clients with operational strategy and structural change, delivering outputs that are scalable to meet the challenges of technological change and International growth.

Post by James Douglas

www.theadvisorypartnership.com

Other Posts by The Advisory Partnership

Over Promise, Under Deliver
Partner Smarter, Grow Faster
International Strategy - How to Get an A in Geography