<>

Benefits of a strategic partnership
Strategic partnership is popular due to various reasons, such as:
•    Offering complementary products and services to their market
•    Opportunity to gain new capacity and expertise
•    Gain new technological knowledge
•    Allow companies to compare their corporate culture productively
•    Access to great new resources
•    Sharing risk with a venture partner
Drawback of a strategic partnership
A strategic partnership often requires significant reconstruction of business and goals. Usually both parties have to review their business strategy to complement each other. There are few risks involved in strategic partnership and that are:
•    Requires time and effort to build a productive relationship
•    Increased chances of conflicts
•    Raise questions concerning the ownership of new invention or intellectual property
•    Imbalance in the level of experts, resources and assets
•    Difference in cultural and management style often results in poor co-ordination
Despite the risks involved, rewards are high if strategic partnership is utilized in true sense.
Strategic partnership agreement
When two companies evaluate each other for strategic partnership, the key part is the strategic partnership agreement. The agreement ensures clarity right from the beginning, prevent arguments and misunderstandings and help business get the most out of partnership. This is why it is advisable to seek legal advice before coming to and drawing up the agreement.
These are the essential aspects of a strategic partnership agreement:
•    Aim and objective: Clearly specify aims like revenue generation, creating a stable credibility in market, cost reduction etc.
•    Non-financial contribution: Non-financial contribution can be visibility on each other websites and promotional campaigns.
•    Financial gain: State out clearly the financial gains involved, it can be in the form of resource supply or the amount of investment.
•    Ownership of intellectual property: Joint ventures sometimes result in new inventions; even creating new logos collaboratively can raise the question of ownership. Always specify how the intellectual properties will be distributed.
•    Evaluation dates: the reason for strategic partnership is to gain benefit in the business world. Set evaluation dates to review how much both parties are benefiting or loosing for the partnership to take place.

Given our connected world, joint ventures are increasingly common these days. It’s a powerful association in which two individuals, group of people, or corporate entities venture together to expand their business, influence and presence. These joint ventures can be between two or more countries as well like Quad CITY Region project which is a joint venture between Japan and America.

Benefits of international joint ventures
International joint ventures, especially in developing countries look attractive because it allows two or more entities to gain significant benefits from the comparative advantages of each other. International joint ventures can be a fusion of knowledge and technology and bring other various advantages. Some of the key benefits of international joint ventures would have to be:
1.    Penetration into new market with ease
2.    Gaining up-to-date technological and managerial knowledge
3.    Increased employment
4.    Chance to take advantage of expertise in host country
5.    Creating new industries and set of experts
6.    Growth for the companies involved in joint venture
These joint ventures can serve environmental purposes as well. One prominent example of such sort of venture is the joint venture between Canada and America on North American Waterfowl Management Plan.

Risks involved in international joint ventures
Despite numerous benefits, international joint ventures are not risk-free. In fact ventures on international scale are comparatively unstable and vulnerable to difficulties. There can be negotiating difficulties when it comes to equity structure, technology transfer, or marketing issues. There are many risks, but just thinking about a few…
1.    Rapid change in political or economical condition in a host country can affect the investing company
2.    Difference in cultural and managerial style can create misunderstanding and problem for the involved parties
3.    Adverse publicity can damage credibility, both nationally and internationally
4.    Gaining no significance in return
Still, if international joint ventures happen true to its spirit then it can create huge positive impact and result in exponential growth and success.

Joint venturing is a big thing in business today, but newbies in the business environment often fail to understand the idea behind it. A joint venture is basically an agreement between two or more businesses to team up, and in doing so obtain greater market influence and a more powerful place in the business environment. There is a sharing of assets and profits, but no transfer of ownership and it can be for a limited period of time. There are both risks and advantages, and we shall look at both sides.

Joint Ventures – the Pros:
•    If you are just starting your business, then joint venturing with a more seasoned, experienced partner will give you the “jumpstart” that you need. It can make it much easier to step into a new, unfamiliar domain, and your learning is much quicker with a partner compared to the trial and error learning process of working on your own.
•    Second, joint ventures with an established business can build credibility for your own. Your being associated with a familiar name would damp your customer’s concerns about your reliability, which in turn would give your business a big boost and enable it to hold its own in the market.
•    Also, a great way to beat your competitors is to join them. It is a win-win situation for all parties, since none of the businesses need to worry about the competition from one another. All the businesses in the agreement can maintain high profit margins and also keep other businesses from reaching your target market.

Joint Ventures – the Cons:
•    Joint ventures, like any other business aspect, bring their risks, and possibly the greatest of these is the risk of working with the wrong people. If you get stuck with a selfish, unprofessional, or in the worst case, fraudulent partner, you risk hurting your business’s reputation, and shattering your customers’ trust. Thus care must be taken in choosing the partner to joint venture with.
•    Secondly, joint ventures often fail owing to a clash in objectives of the partners. If one business aims for capturing a large market share despite the expense of marketing, and another aims simply for stability or stronger cash flow without any significant increase in sales, it is impossible to agree on a strategy. One of the partners will inevitably end up at a disadvantage.
In conclusion, therefore, joint ventures can be regarded as a highly useful strategy, especially for a beginner, but only after careful selection of partners, and a clear agreement among all partners on the objectives of the joint venture.

Today’s business atmosphere is very competitive. To increase the market reach and the odds of survival, more and more companies are looking into strategic alliances or the advantages of a joint venture. 
Our businesses (Nicci And Lee, Lead-Generation-Specialists and Business Academy Online) were all built on joint ventures.

Joint ventures are actually one of the most powerful and result oriented tools for overall business success. Joint ventures improve revenue generation of partners and provide better business placement for all. Some of the major advantages of a joint venture are as follows:
•    By getting into a joint venture, the doors open to larger geographical markets along with bigger customer bases. This leads too much higher marketing possibilities.

•    Due to alliances with different companies this now opens the doors to new marketing channels and strategies. Your access increases and so does your company’s exposure. As a result you will have a larger customer base, and if you have conduct the right joint venture, more of a targeted customer base.

•    If your business is small and does not have strong branding, getting into a joint venture with a recognized company provides you the opportunity to compete with top of the line business companies in your niche, increases your credibility and provides you recognition.

Make sure that you look at your threats as well as your opportunities that are in your market, or niche area. Look at strengths of partner companies and look at the type of customer base it may attract.  Think big and get into a joint venture that develops into a long healthy relationship while meeting your business goals.