The Hidden Story Behind Dancing With Gorillas: Strategies for Partnering With a Multinational

For small firms, partnering with a multinational corporation (MNC) provides great opportunities and great challenges. Conventional partnering approaches are unlikely to succeed, and firms must use less orthodox strategies. In particular, start-ups can employ three strategies for success: forming, consolidating, and extending MNC relationships. 1) Forming MNC relationships entails fathoming the larger company, targeting the right individuals, and not reaching out blindly. Early experiences with an MNC can have profound effects on the relationship forged. 2) Consolidating MNC relationships involves ensuring a strategic fit and increasing the odds of the relationship leveraging the best of the start-up and the MNC. It requires focus and goal orientation and, frequently, mid-course changes in direction, including dropping the relationship. 3) Extending MNC relationships entails recognizing the potential for conflict and balancing cooperation and competition. It requires shrewdness, and the recognition that aligning closely with an MNC may lead over time to overlapping goals and offerings.<br><br>In illustrating these strategies, this article offers various examples, such as the success of Mango Technologies in engaging with Qualcomm. Qualcomm was actually the third MNC that Mango reached out to, and the relationship was successful because Mango devoted itself to the technology front while Qualcomm negotiated bureaucracy. In another example, Lixter leveraged BizSpark One, an MNC partnering initiative run out of Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus. Here, a small firm took advantage of Microsoft’s partnering initiative through being proactive and getting noticed early on.

• Strategic Fit
• Multinational Corporations
• Start-ups
• India
• Silicon Valley, United States