IFS Alliance playbook
IFS wants to create innovative solutions and bring them to their customers at a fast pace. For this they have developed alliances with smaller tech companies, which they can integrate into their bigger ERP software. The process of the alliance management did not run smoothly, therefor we were called in. For this case we partnered with Horizonteer.
The questions to us was as follows
The alliance management is not running well, why is this?
What does the industry standard alliance management process look like?
Interviews & process
To answer the first questions, we did interviews with the already existing alliances. Through qualitative interviews we found the root of the problem; the companies did not get enough time with an alliance manager. Next to that we found that there should be a structured process in place to manage the alliances, with clear stage gates.
Playbooks and checklists would make sure there is a structured process in place. As well as giving a good overview to top line managers.
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“The playbook will make sure the alliance management will run smoothly”
- Ben Vollmer
Deliverable
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Playbook
In the end a Playbook was designed in order for alliance managers to have a structured process, which is based on industry best practices. This makes it that the alliance can be managed successfully and standardized. In this playbook different frameworks and checklists are also set up. This makes sure that the right decisions are made based on measurable information. The checklists make sure that every subject is touched up on during negotiations. Performance metrics were also introduced in order to easily check in on the performance of individual alliances. Finally, a partner-fit framework was set up in order to make sure the right alliances were entered into.