Implementing Alliance Metrics: Six Basic Principles

This article explains how to define and discuss metrics with alliance partners, and ensure clarity around implications of alliance performance.

As companies engage in greater numbers of alliances, and as alliances become increasingly important in terms of strategic and financial impact, senior management has begun to pay more attention to alliance performance metrics. This is a welcome development, for as the old adage goes: if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. As we have worked with clients across a range of industries to develop and implement alliance scorecards, we have found that a standard scorecard framework is often helpful. Developing specific alliance performance metrics within the context of standard measurement categories increases the odds that a balanced and comprehensive set of metrics will be identified.