Welcome to Product Management Challenges!

04031 Marrying Up: Partnering With Big Companies

In the previous issue, I wrote about how to form a good partnership with another company and discussed some of the ways that a Product Manager can be a key element in the success of the partnership. A partnership can produce results that are greater than the sum total of each company’s product.

In today’s economy, with its dramatic technology shifts, there are a lot of startup companies out there. They’re small and nimble, not to mention hungry for money and business. These sometimes tiny companies are out looking for partners with an established customer base and a solid income, companies that they can join with to break into the market and establish themselves.

When a small company partners with a large one, there are many things it needs to understand and do in order for the partnership to succeed. Product Managers play a pivotal role in the success of such a joint effort.

Read on below to learn the basics on what a small company needs to know in order to make its alliance or partnership with a big company work out for the best.
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04030 A Good Marriage: Working With Partners

Compared to manufactured goods or hardware, software products are easy to integrate so that they work together seamlessly. Therefore, collaborating with other software companies to complement and extend the scope of your own product has the potential to transform it and greatly increase your customer base, revenues, and profits.

Joining up with partners can result in offspring where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The ability to form successful partnerships plays a vital role in your company’s success. It’s not enough to get engaged, you want to get married and you want that marriage to last a long, long time.

Thought for the day: How ironic that companies today are spending all sorts of money to build redundant systems and hardware, but shed redundant employees in a flash.

Read on below for some ideas on how to develop a good marriage with the right partner company for your product, and how Product Managers can play a key role in forming a long lasting and fruitful relationship.
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