partnerships

Reflecting back on a 'Strategic Marketing' course at University reminds me that I did learn something.. and indeed, still remember something of use from University. Namely that though partnerships tend to be seen as a end in themselves, and a very popular concept nowadays, partnerships to really be a mean to an end.. and once the end is achieved (or as close as can be), the partnership should be dissolved (therefore when it is created, such a dissolution point should be planned for).

I also remember that the professor's definition of strategic partnership made for interesting thinking: combining different strengths of organisations together for example, or that a partner often enters a partnership hoping to actually beat its partner -partnerships are rarely equal and partner's unstated goals rarely the same. Of course there was much more to the course, such as the difficulties of creating and integrating joint activities, managing them and so on.

In my work I look at strategic benefits in a philanthropy way: between organisations of different sectors, which explicitly have different objectives from partnerships: a company might hope to improve its reputation whereas a charity might want to help poor people. However these partnerships are often fairly successful.

What about partnerships where all partners' over-riding goal is a philanthropic one? This strikes me as interesting because everything in 'business' is about motivation: if the motivation is so strong and commitment so great, might success be achieved? So the recent trend for all kinds of people to start joining coalitions or partnerships to fight some aspect of poverty. Many are not real partnerships; indeed a coalition is often just a membership of a club where you contribute something and a central secretariat actually does something with it. But for actual partnerships; with each partner contributing something, doing something, having a direct stake in the outcome etc -then are these partnerships more successful (the typical MBA textbook will state how often mergers fail to add value, or how often partnerships do not bring much benefit to either partner!) than traditional business partnerships (which my professor was talking about)?

I hope to find out more over the course of my career; one thing is sure, is that these new partnerships (Cross Sector Partnerships, Corporate Community Engagement and so on) are rarely assessed adequately in the context of how successful the partnership is (if it is actually a partnership, rather than just a 'sponsorship'); and only the outcome of the partnership is assessed (and often badly).