Talk:Business partnering

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[edit] Proposed merge

These two articles (Business partnering and Strategic alliance) seem to be the same concept. They should either be merged, or if they are about different concepts, text to compare and contrast them should be added.—greenrd 10:37, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Research Business partnering may be more general than either corporate partnering or Strategic alliance but the latter is the most developed article. I also found Business-partner which would suggest that "partnering" is an approach to existing, common relationships that an enterprise has with its customers, suppliers, or representatives. This also blends into Corporate stakeholder which besides those relationships includes employees and investors but may be more passive, but not necessarily, than the Business-partner relationship. I would also note that the terms "business" and "corporate" are terms not used in dealing with these same concepts in the context of governments and nonprofits. I will give this all more thought. JohnDeBruyn 21:04, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Expanded Research Effort Here at Wikipedia there are some additional related entries that may need to be coordinated and/or reconciled: (1) Strategic alliance is also used as a category (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Strategic_Alliance), (2) besides Business partnering there is Business alliance entry which may also overlap both the Strategic alliance entry and category and (3) the Partnering entry which discusses the term only in the context of ballet. In order to get a feel for how partnering and alliance are generally used on the web I have subscribed to a daily Google alert for those two terms and "strategic alliance." I would also note at this point: that alliance is a noun and is not used as a verb while partner is both a noun and a verb. Partnering and partnered are both derived from partner. JohnDeBruyn 02:42, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Comment I hadn't noticed the business alliance article. I'd say that's the better term, but the article does need developing.
"Strategy" and "strategic" added to other words have spawned a lot of Wikipedia articles -- even though the article strategy isn't particularly well-developed. Strategic alliance, strategic management, strategic marketing, Category:Strategic Alliance (created in 2005 and not corrected for title capitalization since). There's a partial list of more strategy articles in strategy. The use of "strategy" and "strategic" seems to have grown since the 1980s, but I've never seen a clear distinction drawn between, for instance, business alliances and strategic alliances, or marketing and strategic marketing. I think the internet might be warping things a bit here, because it's weak on older texts and extremely heavy on recent faddish terms.
Partner has established meanings which are being applied in new ways. The term carries a sense of closeness and trust, so it's not surprising that it's being used to describe, for instance, what is basically a business alliance.
I think some of these articles need to be culled as neologisms or marketing hype with no clear definition. For now I'm in favor of merging similar terms that don't differ enough to warrant separate articles. That's why I support this merge. -- • • • Blue Pixel 21:58, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Reply to comment and progress report on research Your points are well taken. There are two elements to be considered "strategic" vs. "business" and "partnership" vs. "alliance." To a certain extent the term "strategic" in these contexts merely implies that the alliance or partnership (the term "strategic partnership" appears to be used as often as "strategic alliance") is part of some strategy of the part of one or more of the participants. While, on the other hand, "business" implies that the partnership or alliance is in a business context. That would mean that a government or nonprofit would likely use the terms: "partnership," "alliance," or "strategic alliance" but not "business alliance." In any case, who ever the partners are, I don't think the term "business partnership" would be used unless a legal partnership relation was intended. I am monitoring Google alerts on the use of "business alliance." "strategic alliance," and strategic partnership." Here is a link to the alert reports from July 9/10 which shows that the term "business alliance" is not used as frequently as the others: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgtk4fs2_288dzcf3w I am also on the idea that the word "partnering" is worthy of a separate discussion, I am going to see how this plays out in the context of ballet which now the only context covered under the article discussing "partnering." JohnDeBruyn 15:47, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Progress report on research and preliminary suggestion:: A series of searches using the proximity search feature of Google discloses that the incidence of partnering on the web in conjunction with business outnumber the incidence of partnering in conjunction with ballet by a ratios of more than ten to one. Perhaps the term "business partnering" should be handled as a component of the article on partnering currently featuring only partnering in conjunction with ballet.JohnDeBruyn 15:29, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The two terms can differentiated based on the following definitions:

  • Strategic Alliance is the development of a service or capability by 2 or more organisations to meet a jointly identified gap or opportunity by utilising the respective strengths of the organisations involved. Although strategic alliances are generally aimed at commercial exploitation, they may also be focused on the development of ‘not-for-profit’ or social services.
  • Business Partnering is the collaborative working between organisations to achieve agreed mutually beneficial objectives and often relates to a specific programme or project. In any Business Partnering arrangement there should be representatives from all members of the supply chain (from source suppliers to customers/end users).

Although there are similarities in the derivation of these terms and confusion in their usage, these are not reasons for identifying them as having the same meaning. Also Partnering in a business context needs to be separated from Partnerships – Partnering is a looser affiliation of organisations focused on common, agreed objectives (which may be subject to an overall contract) whereas Partnership relates to a formal working arrangement between 2 or more parties (generally linked to a Partnership Agreement).

Strategic Partnering is related to the choice of organisation to work with (and can therefore link with either Strategic Alliances or Business Partnering). It may be considered that Strategic Partnering is more of a marketing term with the key implications being that an organisation carefully selects other companies to work with and only works with ‘high quality’ organisations when appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.176.201.24 (talk • contribs) 10:10, 20 August 2007

What are the sources/citations for these definitions? -- • • • Blue Pixel 01:47, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

We can't merge concepts as marketing and market, managing and management ... partnering and partnership Strategic partnering and Strategic alliance (partnership) are concepts wich defines respectively a process and a new kind of organization.--MdIta 15:46, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you have sources for these definitions of strategic partnering and strategic alliance?-- • • • Blue Pixel 22:24, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Strategic Alliances are more closely related to Equity Joint Ventures or Non-Equity Based Cooperative Alliances.

  • Equity Joint Ventures exists when two or more businesses engage in an activity that allows them to render service or produce output (or any value-chain activity) through a newly-created and separate company. They also share degrees of equity or ownership of the legal entity and serve as the "parent companies" of said entity.
  • Non-Equity Based Cooperative Alliances are similar to Joint Ventures in that they exist when two or more companies engaged in a cooperative contractual agreement to render service or produce output (or any value-chain activity). The difference is that no separate company is formed, thus no equity or ownership is available. The companies simply divide the spoils of their cooperative activity based on what they had earlier agreed on in their contracts.

The difference between Strategic Alliances and Partnerships is that a Partnership involves the merging of the management and hierarchies of two or more companies into one company. Strategic Alliances involve only the cooperation and allocation of financial, human, technological, physical, or other such resources for the purpose of investing in a value-chain activity. Strategic Alliances are usually international in nature, and are often used by foreign investors to do business in countries that have legal restrictions that compel foreign companies to own less than local companies as a form of economic protection. Prince-of-PowerPoint 23:10, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comment Please

Hello!

I was hoping you could please look for my Wikipedia page "co-branding" This is my first page that I wrote for a class.

I would appreciate your input.

Thanks, Mary BethMlease (talk) 22:01, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] added category to strategic alliance

Before there were commercial alliances, there were military alliances, and it so happens that many historical and current defence alliances are strategic, so I would oppose the merger of the concept with business partnering. I think I can find other opposers--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 04:28, 18 May 2008 (UTC)