Collaboration between business partners is nothing new, but there has been a tremendous increase in the diversity, variety and scale of partnership forms, from mergers to alliances and now platforms and ecosystems. As it's easy to get lost in this accelerating trend of 'partnering', there is a growing interest in understanding and approaching this emerging field of partnering collaboration in a more systematic way.

Looking for some guidance and clarity on partnering strategies?

We warmly invite you to join us in this podcast to learn to better navigate partnering strategies through a systematic approach brought forward by the renowned expert Prof. Dr. Christoph Lechner of the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. As the Academic Director of the brand-new Competence Centre “Alliances, Platforms and Ecosystems (APE)” of the University of St.Gallen, he works at the intersection between cutting-edge research and practice. Together, we explore the various categories of partnering strategies, what makes them successful, and what needs to be considered when building platform (ecosystem) business models.

Listen to the full episode

Our conversation addresses key questions such as

• What are the various forms of inter-organizational collaboration that have emerged throughout history? (~3:49)

• What is the failure or success rate and what have we learned to avoid failure? (~14:19)

• What are the most important things to consider when building a platform business model? (~19:31)

• Looking to the future, what is next? (~36:04)

• What are the most important skills for managing ecosystems and platforms? (~46:57)

Some key take-aways

• Partnering strategies can be categorized as M&As, alliances, portfolios of alliances, joint ventures, platforms, and ecosystems.

• "The failure rate of partnerships is about 50% - approximately as high as the average divorce rate" - managing partnering models is a distinct capability and can lower this failure rate.

• "It's not an ego-system, it's an ecosystem" - fair effective value distribution and governance are key factors in successful partnering strategies.

• The future of partnering strategies lies in learning how to manage partnerships more effectively, especially when it comes to innovation.

• Rather than focusing on "5-year business cases", experimentation, flexibility and empathy are essential skills to make partnering strategies work.

Anything that spoke to you from this podcast episode?
We love to hear from you - drop a comment below.

Some links

Would you like to learn more about the work of Prof. Christoph Lechner and the team of the Competence Centre Alliances, Platforms and Ecosystems? Please feel free to explore our link list below:

• About: Profile of Prof. Dr. Christoph Lechner

• About the Comeptence Centre: Competence Centre “Alliances, Platforms & Ecosytems” at the University of St.Gallen

• Tune into more podcasts from the Competence Centre:
  Podcast “Platform Insights” on Apple Podcasts

  Podcast “Platform Insights” on Spotify

If you’d like to learn more about the Partnering Leadership Academy offerings mentioned, here are the links: The PLA Podcast episode on perspective taking or our online course on how to define a shared purpose.

About the PLA Podcast guest expert series
Tune into our unplugged conversations about rethinking business with a partnering core. This podcast is designed to share insights and experiences with valuable experts and contributors on various aspects of partnering leadership. It's intended to provide reflections, experiences and guidance for inspiring us to rethink, navigate, and create impactful professional partnering in increasingly networked economies and societies. This podcast is hosted by Dr Eva Bilhuber Galli, the founding host of Partnering Leadership Academy, a place to rethink business with a partnering core.