Partnership Strategy and Execution Study

Increasingly, the most successful companies are leveraging external assets and capabilities, as much or more than internal ones, to accelerate growth and strategy execution. This research investigates the large and growing role of partnerships in corporate strategies, and what it takes to master partnership execution.

Below are a few highlights from the research:

1. Across sectors, most respondents report that alliances are “very important” or “mission critical”, and expect more of their future success to depend on collaboration with partners
2. Companies that leverage external assets and capabilities via partnerships have outperformed those who rely heavily or exclusively on internal assets and capabilities – both  in terms of historic revenue and stock price growth
3. Many companies (75% of those who compete with their business partners “some” or “a great deal”) actively explore how to use collaboration with competitors to preempt or respond to competitive threats
4. More than 50% of partnerships fail to fully achieve their objectives, and internal factors (e.g., operating models and culture) are a significant driver of alliance performance
5. Companies with high levels of alliance management maturity are 80% more likely to fully achieve the objectives of any individual alliance.