Featured Post

As Anambra State prepares for Nov 6 election…

Five Ways To Build Great Business Partners



Whether you are a startup or a mature company, business partnerships can be the difference between growth through new markets and products, or stagnation.  When done well, business partnerships can help your business to differentiate your product, increase your distribution, or provide the critical services that you aren’t able to manage at world class levels yourself.
At my company, Kabam, partnerships are a key component of how we built the company to become the #1 free-to-play core games company.  We work with a growing number of partners to complement their core products, generate meaningful revenues and provide a great gaming experience for their customers.
Last year Kabam partnered with Paramount Studios to develop The Godfather: Five Families.  The iconic image of The Godfather marionette, known by consumers for four decades, immediately elevated the rest of Kabam’s catalog.  We launched the game on our own platform Kabam.com in addition to Facebook, Yahoo! and Google.
This year GameStop and Kabam partnered to help generate traffic on GameStop’s web portal, Kongregate, by promoting Kabam’s Realm of the Mad God game to millions of shoppers in GameStop stores.  The promotion offered consumers in-store GameStop credits if they played the Kabam game on Kongregate.  We will generate in-store traffic as well as digital revenues for this great partner.
Our biggest partnership to date is with Warner Bros.  This fall Kabam is bringing games based on Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy to mobile devices and the web.  Kabam’s proven ability to keep our games fresh and engaging for several years to match with the franchise life was a key factor in our ability to live up to the brand promise of The Hobbit.
For companies wishing to build partnerships into their growth strategy, I found these learnings valuable over the last few years:
1) Dig deep into your partner’s business – Research beyond the headlines.  Spend the first meeting understanding each other’s business and more importantly, the roles and responsibilities of the people you’re talking to.  Executives in large companies often have very specific goals and compensation packages tied to specific KPIs.  If your proposed partnership doesn’t fit into their area of responsibility or into how they are compensated, find another executive who’s a better fit.   Know the partner’s strengths and weaknesses so that you can structure the deal to leverage both companies’ strengths.
2) Differentiate yourself – Successful companies have endless business development executives knocking on their doors to pitch a partnership.  Prove that your product or service is unique and worth their time and effort, and that you will be a valued partner.  Kabam’s partnership with Warner Brothers was secured by our commitment to their success, our three-year track record of building game franchises and our ability to monetize free-to-play games in a way that is entirely unique in the marketplace.
3) Define success and ensure a mutual win – If you can't measure it, you’ll have no idea how you’re doing.  Demonstrate how you will complement the partner’s top focus area.  Being important to your partner means that they will work harder with you to make the partnership successful.  GameStop would not have partnered with Kabam if the promotion that drove people online didn’t get customers back into GameStop stores as well and drive digital revenues.
4) Confirm the partnership will deliver over time – Promises are easy, execution is not.  Ensure that your partnership has buy-in at the most senior level, and the partner will remain committed.  Avoid the temptation for a quick test that may not show accurate results; instead, favor an implementation that will show off the partnership in the right light for both parties.
5) Build the relationship with the company and the people – The ideal partnership scenario is one where both parties feel compelled to come back to the table at the end of the partnership period to figure out how to make it successful for the next period.  If you have invested in the relationship over the life of a successful partnership, this discussion should be a fun one.

Success begets success. Use the methodology from one partnership to pursue others and your company might just experience growth beyond your imagination. 

Comments