Thanks, Partner: The Value of Developing Business Partnershps
Throughout my career as an engineer and as an Avanceon executive, I have looked at partnerships from a wide variety of perspectives.
Early in my career, I viewed partnerships and the necessary time it took to make them “real” as a burden. Why should I, as a “busy” person, take the time to connect, learn, understand, and communicate the details about a company and the value they provide if it was not the one I worked for? Why would we want to “slow down” a project or potential opportunity by working with an outside company and seemingly put the project scope and our role in executing it in the hands of a non-Avanceon entity? I often struggled to connect the value that the other company could bring as it pertained to our core focus and scope. I wondered why I would even bother to engage with a project when our potential part of the work was thin and the partner’s scope was thick.
Boy, was I silly in my youth…
I’ve learned over the past decade that being able to leverage the knowledge and experience of a partner not only enhances the scope Avanceon provides on a project, but can also expand our customer relationships beyond typical limits. I’ve also discovered how a second perspective on a customer problem or thorny issue illuminates possibilities and solutions we would not have considered without an alternate view.
Our customer relationships and the value we provide can grow to new heights when we take in a partner’s perspectives and insight. I have also seen that the value of a company is not always just what you can provide inside your walls and with your people – it also involves how you can connect customer problems with potential solutions and resources, even if they may not be yours. To our customers, the value of Avanceon expands as we transition from a great system integrator to a great system integrator that can help them with almost any problem. The key to this transition is our ability to connect to the right people and partners.
The business of system integration is a marathon, not a sprint. Seeds of partnership, planted in the spring of a relationship, bear good fruit when project or commercial issues occur (and Murphy says they always do). I cannot imagine how difficult it would be to address and solve a crisis if I had not put time in early with our partners’ key leadership and developed a level of trust prior to the “stuff” hitting the fan.
In business there is merit to staying focused on your expertise, but I have found better value in becoming a force multiplier. Avanceon provides better, more complete solutions for the market by leveraging the breadth, depth, expertise and unique innovation of our partners.
What do you see in the world you live in? Partners worth their weight or do you see that weight as an anchor? Let us know!
To learn more about Avanceon’s partners, visit https://avanceon.com/keypartners/
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