Partnerships

Extending your product development to include an any outsourced team may seem daunting.  But with shrinking product development cycles, rising costs, rapid technology changes and increasing customer sophistication, companies recognize that they cannot go it alone if they want to innovate.

Partnering has emerged as an increasingly critical competitive competency for any company that aims to drive sustainable growth through innovation and success hinges on the quality of their collaborative relationships. Relationship should be built on mutual trust, shared responsibility and common goals.

In seeking a partnership, you need a team who are truly customer driven, share a similar culture, seek continuous improvements, live and breath quality and who can envision a variety of ways to meet the needs of the market with a great depth and breadth of experience and knowledge.

The formation of a team where effective collaborations allow them to reduce costs, increase innovation, deliver more value to you, and create sustainable competitive advantage and where you can have absolute confidence and trust.

That team will understand that the protection of your IP is critical.  Protection for your ideas, products, processes, designs, copyright etc should be via confidentiality agreements and NDA’s to ensure that your intellectual property is kept confidential at all times.

Agreements are one thing, and it is worth remembering that Intellectual property (IP) rights are territorial, which means they only give protection in the countries where they are granted or registered.  The question you should ask when considering an offshore partnership is ‘are you looking for low cost or a trusted partner where your innovation is safe?’

If your innovation is ripped off what will it cost your company and your brand?

With reports that reverse engineering, counterfeiting, piracy, theft and other forms of IP misappropriation are widespread you really need to be sure that agreements between countries are both legally binding and enforceable.

Far better then to take a step back and really consider the cost of partnering in low cost regions, will it really be low cost if you lose first mover advantage?  By considering the total acquisition costs and the protection you get here on home soil you really can make it more difficult for competitors to follow.

It is important in the end to find right partner, who has a good culture match, where the people you deal with inspire your confidence and trust and with whom you can be open and honest.  With the right ingredients product development and innovation will be in safe hands and it will be a truly win win relationship.