Partnerships are a curious category of business. Certainly, one where I still find myself explaining to some what I actually do in this realm (I do a few things, partnerships is one). The closest thing I can find is some fusion between marketing and businesses development, and sometimes it’s exactly that. But increasingly so is the notion that partnerships is forging its own distinct corner of business activity, as a key driver of intangible value creation.
A dedicated person or team might manage the key external relationships one business might have with other organisations or individuals that help them grow. And managing those relationships might look like finding new brands, influencers, businesses to work with for mutual gain. It might look like the building and nurturing of stakeholder ties, of negotiating collaborations, and coordinating a solid vision internally — all to create new commercial opportunities that would not have otherwise existed.
That’s essentially the role of a Development or Partnerships Director, but what I’ve seen from experience is that the same role tends to behave differently by industry. If you are in a marketing team, representing consumer brands, partnerships might look like collaborations with other brands or influencers, or sponsorship deals with a well-known cultural IP (like a sports team). As marketers, those partnerships are assessed very much through typical marketing metrics such as reach, audience, engagement, brand alignments and activation opportunities. When I work with cultural institutions or membership organisations, by contrast, they often look at partnerships through a philanthropic lens, and thereby often miss entirely the opportunities for aligning with marketers to lift a brand. Because they don’t notice this entire category (marketers as opposed to the philanthropists they may have fixated on), they also don’t know how to cater to reporting to a marketer, even though the value is distinctly there. It just hasn’t been translated into a language that marketers use.
Just one example that I see time and again.
So, this framework below is to help you assess value in a partnership through a more holistic lens, and pull you away from leaning too hard into some otherwise tired industry norms that you see your competitors doing.
When I look for opportunities for value creation in partnership design, there are three places I tend to look:
