Our partner has just changed the rules. Help!

We are a “partner” of a giant global business. They’ve just changed the rules, which fundamentally changes our business. Help!

An understandably grumpy CEO outlined the following scenario to me the other day.

For many years the company had enjoyed a “partner” status with a giant global business. The status had been useful because it gave the company credibility. The company abided by all the rules associated with “partner” status and by all accounts the relationship, though completely insignificant to the global giant, was good.

Recently the global giant announced a change to the “partner” status. From 2011 all businesses wishing to achieve such status would need to attain a certain quantity of sales from medium-sized corporates.

The problem for the company was that they worked entirely at the small end of the market; their clients were exclusively Mum and Dad companies. They had no experience in the medium-sized corporate market.

So the grumpy CEO believed the global giant was forcing him to change his strategy and to sell to medium-sized corporates and came asking urgently, and with a certain degree of panic, for tips on to how to break in to this medium-sized arena.

Looking at it in a different way however, the more interesting question was whether the company actually needed to change it’s existing successful strategy. Did the company really need the “partner” status, or could it now fly solo?

Initially the grumpy CEO simply wouldn’t countenance the thought of giving up the “partner” status. But he did eventually agree to go and speak to a selection of customers and ask them how important “partner” status had been in the selection of the company as their supplier.

And as it turned out “partner” status had been largely irrelevant in their evaluation of the company. Rather, the customers had been impressed by the company’s track record in dealing with “Mum and Dad” businesses and a good proportion of the customers didn’t even realise that the company was a “partner” of the global giant!

Consequently the grumpy CEO had an about face. He enthusiastically told the global giant that his business wouldn’t be seeking “partner” status in 2011 and instead set about cementing his place in the market where he played best.

I think the learning in this story is to resist being railroaded by global giants into changing your strategy to suit theirs. Many of these “partner” programs are not as influential as they would have you believe. If you have a good service and a well-constructed strategy you can almost certainly stand on your own two feet.

Julia Bickerstaff’s expertise is in helping businesses grow profitably. She runs two businesses:Butterfly Coaching, a small advisory firm with a unique approach to assisting SMEs with profitable growth; and The Business Bakery, which helps kitchen table tycoons build their best businesses. Julia is the author of “How to Bake a Business”  and was previously a partner at Deloitte. She is a chartered accountant and has a degree in economics from The London School of Economics (London University).