If you're just starting out, or even if you've been in business for quite some time, the value of partnerships cannot be discounted. When we were starting out, we were completely unknown entities, but because we knew our stuff, most of the projects we did were sub-contracted by larger companies. As a consulting firm, we started by working with other slightly larger consulting firms, then biggers ones, until finally we were being sub-contracted work by the Big 4.
Another important use of partnerships is for overseas business. Being based out of India, offers us the cost advantage, so we can talk to overseas partners to get us business, and then outsource it to us. Just that the specific line of consulting we are in, involves senior management, so it's not always easy for an overseas partner to sell Indian consultants. But as the client base expands, and the expertise grows, this becomes much easier.
The first place to look out for partners is among your competition. It doesn't hurt to drop them an email saying they can outsource work to you should they fall short of resources. Next you could look at larger firms who do work in a number of areas, one of which is your niche. They're always ready to outsource work if you can deliver on one or two assignments. Thirdly, you could network in industry associations or meetings. I am terribly bad at doing this. But there was one time I attended a conference, and at tea managed to start talking to someone. Turns out he worked for one of the larger audit firms, and they were interested in our niche services for their clients. What started out with a casual conversation ended up giving us business worth millions of rupees. One of the employees who worked at this audit firm left them and went to work for one of the Big 4 in the Middle East. He then introduced us to the head of practice there, and we got further business from them.
Partnerships save you the trouble of the sales cycle, they save the headache of explaining to a billion-dollar organization how you as a 2-person consulting firm could provide them good service, it keeps the bread on the table, gives you the experience, and helps you build the contacts to get some initial traction going.
About Me
- Kanwal K Mookhey
- Mumbai, India
- I run an IT Security consulting firm based out of India. We started off from scratch in 2001 when I was 21, and have offices in Mumbai, Bahrain, and UAE. The idea behind the blog is to share the stories of how we run the business, the deals we make, the deals that break, the heartburn, and the sheer joy.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Partnerships
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10 comments:
Very informative. I am looking forward to learning more.
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Thanks! Let me know if there are any specific topics you'd like to see covered.
If you are a tech consulting company (which it seems you guys are...) another form of a partnership would be as an implementation partner of a software product company. Typically these guys need installations of their product customized for their end users - they don't want to do it themselves and would gladly outsource it to a smaller player. Of course the bigger the installed base the more the competition amongst partners!
That's a good one. Actually all it requires is to identify a niche which the bigger players need filled in. So for instance, in our case, we looked at the product companies in our domain, and offered to provide professional services to their client base and it worked out quite well. We didn't get into product customization, but that ought to be something we should look into as well.
What do you do when the consulting that I want to do is in the form of empowerement consulting and there seems to be no firm doing that, as I know it. How do we start out
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