Many things are necessary, but they are not sufficient. For a new company, things such as a proper marketing plan, great systems, these are all necessary, but you soon find that they are not efficient.
In the arena of business, it’s important to make this distinction early enough, or risk to make it late and get burnt. Partnerships is one of those things that come to light. It’s a determiner and definer of business success. There are journeys that can and will only be travelled with partnerships, they can’t be travelled solo.
Let’s speak infrastructure for example. A business may draft a strategy around an amazing distribution plan in a hard-to-reach area. Uganda Breweries Limited (UBL) once had a group they termed as the ‘Seals’, they were meant to play the foot soldier role in areas where not even motorbikes could access. They were meant to solve the last mile problem. That strategy didn’t last long. Why? The benefits that could accrue from such a strategy would be eaten away by the costs of implementation. You could argue that this was one of those things that could only be hedged on a successful partnership. Think of trying to solve a last-mile problem for a mountainous population. Think of also trying to solve this problem in times of heavy rains and floods.
Thus, there must be an aspect of every business’ strategy that directs seeks out partnerships. And those should be end to end partnerships. Partnerships will often arise when two or more parties have shared interests. At Ortega Group, we argue that although this is necessary, it’s not sufficient. Partnerships should also be around shared values. It’s easy to crack shared interests, it’s hard to align the value aspect. Why are values important? Because it’s out of values that long-term relationships can be built.
Shared interests will always collapse without the foundation of shared values. Although most businesses are hungry for short term successes, they tend to ignore the value aspect. But values are what guarantees the sustainability aspect of partnerships. Sustainable partnerships are anchored on shared values, and out of these, shared interests can be pursued.
For an individual growing through an organization, career growth is a big function of partnerships. If you work in sales, you need partnerships in finance (to model the numbers), you need partnerships in marketing (to support the product or service you’re selling), you need partnerships in the data analytics (for insights) and you need the C-suite partnerships for the right sponsorship of your ideas. Not forgetting the compliance partnerships to ensure that one is in track on the governance aspect. We mention partnerships because quite often it’s a neglected piece, often left to chance and random encounters.
As we define Ugandan Excellence, let’s not pass over the aspect of partnerships. It counts!