{"id":621,"date":"2016-03-11T07:02:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-11T07:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/premier_developer\/2016\/03\/11\/strategic-partnerships-in-an-agile-world\/"},"modified":"2019-03-07T12:56:18","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T19:56:18","slug":"strategic-partnerships-in-an-agile-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/premier-developer\/strategic-partnerships-in-an-agile-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Strategic Partnerships in an Agile World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bryan Towne<\/strong>, Sr. Application Development Manager, discusses the advantages of strategic partnership in this fast moving technical landscape.\u00a0 You should expect more.\u00a0 Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n

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\"\"What is a strategic partner?<\/strong> In the course of my professional career I have had interactions with customers of all types.\u00a0 Some were small, independent software vendors (ISVs) and\u00a0 some were large enterprise customers.\u00a0 At times, these environments were mature in process and strategy.\u00a0 Other times, the environments felt like an exercise in firefighting and damage mitigation. In all cases, what set each apart in terms of success was the ability to leverage strategic partnerships.<\/p>\n

Occasionally, the leadership of a company wisely establishes a partnership for an advantage it can bring to the business and yet, the full value of this partnership is not always achieved. Why?\u00a0 What sets the companies apart that gain more market share or lower costs from those that do not?\u00a0 Successful partnerships use the relationship to define a clear strategy that builds on strengths and fills in gaps.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to occasionally ask the question, \u201cwhat business do we want to be in?\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0 With rapid innovation and fierce competition, It\u2019s unreasonable to think that every challenge a company faces is achievable on its own.\u00a0\u00a0 For example, a Service Provider<\/em> may depend on a multitude of technologies, but leverage a Technology Company<\/em> to help so they can focus on activities that are core to a business strategy.\u00a0 The alternative might be to also become a Technology Company, but risk losing the focus and agility needed to retain and grow a market by focusing on too many things.\u00a0 While it is sometimes advantageous to control all aspects of a business, it can be difficult to scale.\u00a0 As an example, a teammate of mine has a customer who gains growth by acquiring companies to its portfolio, but they suffer from constantly merging those assets without ever looking at simple partnering alternatives. This leaves very little flexibility for attaining business objectives when solutions always have to come from within.<\/p>\n

I have seen first-hand examples of companies using a partnership to exponentially increase application capacity and concurrency.\u00a0 These companies were able to respond to challenges, turn around customers, and generate new business. They enjoyed the success of reporting to leadership that the engagement gained 10x return on its investment, all while publically announcing this new potential. Like any strategic partnership, the return was tangible on both sides.\u00a0 A clear strategy that built on strengths and identified gaps together resulted in a plan they could execute on.\u00a0 To contrast, failed partnerships frequently operate in a mode where there is a lack of trust, communication, and little opportunity to build on collective strengths.\u00a0 Those reactive or \u201cinsurance policy\u201d type partnerships, are often considered a cost center where only uptime or problem avoidance is valued.<\/p>\n

When a leadership decision to drive agile business strategy emerges, it usually brings with it a risk of resource availability and creates a significant knowledge gap.\u00a0 When it comes to building new and innovative applications, companies are often faced with solving this through staff augmentation or a \u201cbuy versus build\u201d strategy.\u00a0 Long term, this approach is not always sustainable.\u00a0 We have established that going out on your own can be risky and when used properly, partners can assist companies with being successful at growing market share and quickly responding to business needs.<\/p>\n

As an Application Development Manager (ADM) my main focus is to work on strategic initiatives that yield my customer the highest return. I don\u2019t receive any incentive from, for example, putting your team into a training workshop or selling solutions, so this guides my efforts to work toward your business objectives. My goal is to propose the best suited Microsoft services to achieve your goals whether that means a one-hour phone advisory to a four-week multi-stage engagement. This core principle ensures engagements do not need to be hard hitting on budgets to achieve results. ADM\u2019s can help assess with ongoing strategic conversations,\u00a0 \u201cteach them to fish\u201d scenarios, or whatever helps a team bring their best work forward. While I always enjoy being that resource who helped a partner build something awesome (that\u2019s the developer in me), it\u2019s just as rewarding to bring your team the knowledge transfer on a new technology essential for the next iteration of an application.<\/p>\n

The difference to a service provider and a strategic partner really comes down to the tone of the relationship.\u00a0 A strategic partnership is established on trust, built on strengths, and must open and honest when it comes to gaps and needs. As an ADM, I can inquire on your projects all day long, but we both cannot be successful until the right engagement fits the right need and delivers business results. <\/strong><\/p>\n

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Premier Support for Developers<\/strong><\/a> provides strategic technology guidance, critical support coverage, and a range of essential services to help teams optimize development lifecycles and improve software quality.\u00a0 Contact your Application Development Manager (ADM) or email us<\/a> to learn more about what we can do for you.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bryan Towne, Sr. Application Development Manager, discusses the advantages of strategic partnership in this fast moving technical landscape.\u00a0 You should expect more.\u00a0 Here\u2019s why. What is a strategic partner? In the course of my professional career I have had interactions with customers of all types.\u00a0 Some were small, independent software vendors (ISVs) and\u00a0 some were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":582,"featured_media":37840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[34,21,6],"class_list":["post-621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-permierdev","tag-alm","tag-devops","tag-partner"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Bryan Towne, Sr. Application Development Manager, discusses the advantages of strategic partnership in this fast moving technical landscape.\u00a0 You should expect more.\u00a0 Here\u2019s why. What is a strategic partner? In the course of my professional career I have had interactions with customers of all types.\u00a0 Some were small, independent software vendors (ISVs) and\u00a0 some were […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/premier-developer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/premier-developer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/premier-developer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/premier-developer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/582"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/premier-developer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/premier-developer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/premier-developer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/premier-developer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/premier-developer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/premier-developer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}