Providing solutions that include secure and seamless payment processing isn’t easy, as clients increasingly demand secure payment tools that integrate seamlessly with your products. As a technology provider, this requires partnering with a payment processor that can provide both the technology and support you and your clients need.
But for the partnership to be successful, you need more than just the right technology and support. Many partnerships that seem like the right fit on paper end up failing, sometimes because of a lack of due diligence during negotiations or a lack of effort in their maintenance.
Here are some essential elements of a successful B2B partnership:
Focus on Partner Experience
B2B channels are currently transitioning from a tiered, resale, and fulfillment function to a more fluid indirect ecosystem of affiliates, advocates, alliances, and referral partners. Approximately 70% of global revenue comes from third-party channels, and partners play a crucial role in shaping the customer experience. However, many organizations have been slow to recognize the link between partner experience and customer experience.
43% of global B2B marketing decision-makers ranked improving customer experience as a top priority in 2019, while 39% were looking to improve partner experience. Forrester predicts that marketing decision-makers will rank improving partner experience on par with improving customer experience in 2020, and that both will rise to more than 50%.
Common Goals and Shared Values
Alignment on the central objectives of a relationship ranked among the top factors in the success or failure of a partnership. Deals should not be rushed, especially between companies in the same industry, until common objectives are decided upon and discussed. Individuals expected to lead day-to-day operations should be actively involved in negotiations from the beginning.
For B2B partnerships to succeed, both sides should draft a formal, joint business plan that details each company's role and responsibilities. These plans should be specific about what each company hopes to gain from the relationship, how long this will take, and expectations on both sides.
Partnerships are also significantly more likely to be successful if the partners share core values. For example, iATS Payments by Deluxe® and our partners appreciate the work of nonprofit organizations and recognize their crucial impact on civil society. This nonprofit focus helps us constructively work with our partners to design solutions that help nonprofits devote more time and resources to their missions.
Transparency and Trust
Transparency during negotiations ensures that everyone understands each other’s goals and that everyone uses the same measures of success. The individuals expected to lead the day to day operations of the partnership should also be involved in goal-setting.
Transparency in the early stages of a partnership can help defuse tensions and even prevent them from arising in the first place. “Showing your cards" in the correct way can create an enormous amount of trust and allows partners to look for win/win opportunities in an integrative manner.
In addition to business, it is equally important to build good collaboration and trust between partners. The best way of illustrating the importance of good communication is to ponder what its absence would lead to – unnecessary confusion and lots of extra work for everyone.
Branding and Marketing
The old reselling model is becoming less common than referrals, which allow a company to collect and analyze customer data. The effectiveness of a business partner can be accurately judged only if referral leads can be accurately tracked and attributed to the partner.
Partnerships also present opportunities for co-marketing and co-branding initiatives, in which partners can combine their resources and reach to tap into a wider audience than either partner could on their own. Examples include blog posts, co-branded flyers and even Twitter chats.
Co-marketing is more cost-effective than simply buying ads because you can reach a wider yet more targeted audience. It’s also a great way of developing and maintaining partnerships.
iATS Payments features our partners in our Technology Marketplace.
Partner Relationship Management (PRM)
Since the average partner program contains over 90 distinct components, encouraging channel growth while mediating conflict is a complex undertaking. Due to the growing number and types of partners, managing a channel program today has become more on-demand with automated workflows, personalization, customization, and scalability.
As brands increasingly use channels, partnerships, and alliances as primary methods of reaching customers, managing these relationships in a consistent, predictable, and productive way is critical. PRM connects the dots between partner planning, recruitment, onboarding, enablement, incentives, co-selling, co-marketing, and management.
Brands that can balance their direct and indirect execution while maintaining consistency in customer expectations and experience are having outsized success in the market.
Developing partnerships takes time, effort, planning and trust. B2B leaders who can forge successful partnerships can reap growth and cost savings that more than compensate for the risks they take.
Support Center