The definition for an alliance is when two (or more) organizations combine their resources to create new value that could not be (easily) achieved by either party alone. Innovation is often described as the process of combining disparate ideas to create something new and in today’s business climate often requires a collaborative approach. It is easy to see why alliances are incubators of innovation. Innovative capacity is an indicator of the ability of an alliance to create value for customers and new revenue streams for the partners. Below are the top five metrics chosen by technology partners as the metrics they measure for innovative capacity.
Solutions Integration is clearly the predominant source of innovation in the technology sector at 80%. Customers of technology tend to buy services, hardware, software , etc. from multiple vendors and expect that they will interoperate. To the extent that technology vendors cooperate in ensuring their products and services work together, they reduce risk and cost to the customer and increase their attractiveness.
Accelerating Technology Adoption is an important aim for new emerging technologies. New technologies often get stuck in ‘chasm’ and having the right partner ecosystem promoting a new technology can support the crossing by providing services and additional value that mainstream buyers demand.
Creating New Products and Services was a source of innovative capacity for well over half of the respondents and often requires Access to External Expertise to execute, providing fertile ground for innovation.
New Business Models are a disruptive force in the technology sector as traditional vendors and their resellers are adapting to the convergence of Social, Mobile, Analytics, and Cloud (SMAC) technologies. In particular the migration from capital purchases to the services model of the cloud is creating new alignments in the partner ecosystem and new go-to-market models.
