Creating a Business Breakthrough

This article is based on the book: Create the Business Breakthrough You Want: Secrets and Strategies from the World's Greatest Mentors ©2004 Mission Publishing, a division of The Mission Marketing Mentors, Inc., www.missionpublishing.net, or www.missionmarketingmentors.com.

It's not often you get the chance to access the cumulative wisdom of over 60 business and financial mentors, but that is exactly what this book offers you. The authors were chosen following a worldwide search for subject experts who had something important to say to business practitioners. As a consultant specialising in helping companies to establish and exploit successful partnerships, I was selected to contribute a chapter to the book on the subject of "Partnering in the New Economy for Increased Market Share".

Create the Business Breakthrough You Want: Secrets and Strategies From the World's Greatest Mentors is a handbook for business people who want to achieve more than year-on-year improvements in sales or profits. It is full of insights and ideas that will help you to understand the dynamics of today's markets and how to leverage the opportunities that are out there. As the book's title suggests, the information that is packed into its 61 chapters will show you how to create the right conditions and develop the resources in your company to achieve a true business breakthrough.

Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One Minute Manager® and The On-Time, On-Target Manager said of the book: "Powerful, perceptive, practical advice from some of the best business minds today."

Partnering in the New Economy for Increased Market Share

Building on work done with major telecoms equipment suppliers and Warwick Business School in the UK, my chapter describes the dynamics of the new Information and Communications Technology (ICT) economy and its implications for how organisations will partner with one another.

The central premise is that a new core competence is emerging: that of organising collaborations of companies and marketing the capabilities of these consortia to the end customer. Organisations developing this new competence construct “value webs”. They have been called “orchestrators”, identifying, managing and sustaining sets of collaborative partnerships to deliver value to selected target markets.

The result is a set of commercial arrangements much like a spider’s web, with the orchestrator at the centre of this web, guarding its own set of competences; a small number of partners within an “inner circle”, each contributing a vital component of the overall; and a larger number of remote suppliers – all held together by the orchestrator’s “corporate glue”. Ultimately, success of a value web depends on how well the orchestrator coordinates the activities of the companies involved to deliver what the market wants.

To be successful players in the new ICT economy, companies must understand these dynamics and decide explicitly where they wish to play: as an orchestrator, a close partner or as a more “arms length”, commodity-type supplier.

Other chapters in the book

Create the Business Breakthrough You Want: Secrets and Strategies From the World's Greatest Mentors is organised into five major sections, covering:

• Business Strategy
• Leadership Development
• Marketing and Sales
• Personal Growth
• Wealth Building

"If you want wealth and wisdom, buy this book." So said Jeffrey Fox, best-selling author of How to Make Big Money in Your Own Small Business.

Each major section begins with a chapter by a world-leading authority – people like Robert G. Allen, Brian Tracy and Mark Victor Hansen. This is followed by a series of chapters, each one written by an author selected for Mission Publishing's The World's Greatest Mentors^TM Publishing Programme.

The book has been designed to impart a great deal of wisdom in just a small number of words. Each chapter takes less than ten minutes to read. It is a great book for "dipping into"; for reading while waiting for a flight or a train; or as a daily source of inspiration before getting down to the daily grind.

According to Bob Nelson, Ph.D., president of Nelson Motivation Inc. and best-selling author of 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, 1001 Ways to Energize Employees and Managing for Dummies: "This book offers a great collection of insight and advice that could be of help to most business executives and business owners."

Create the Business Breakthrough You Want: Secrets and Strategies From the World's Greatest Mentors is sold in the US and is available from Amazon at a price of $19.95US. Or to order from Istaris Business Services for delivery in the UK click here.

Partnering Points on Creating a Business Breakthrough

Conclusions from the chapter "Partnering in the New Economy for Increased Market Share":

• Every new economy player must strive to be part of one or more successful value webs. The question is: Where do you want to play? As a supplier, a partner, or an orchestrator?
• Companies may choose to play different roles in different markets; even smaller companies can be orchestrators in niche or geographically local markets.
• Whichever role or roles you decide to play, you must ensure that your organisation is “partnership ready”. This means making yourself attractive to partners, supporting them and being easy to do business with.
• You cannot afford to be risk-averse or too slow. Partnering in the new economy will be based on fewer certainties than today, and the market opportunities shorter-lived.
• But for those businesses that do get it right, the rewards will be substantial. The key learning point is that you must build the right partnerships within value webs to support your company’s goals and objectives. Only then will your company prosper in the new ICT economy.

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