No Matter Size or Sector, Every Business Stands to Benefit from a Partnership
Every company utilizes technology to create, build and deliver a fast, efficient and customized experience to its consumers. Some fit the description in more obvious ways, but from manufacturing to communications, science to design and everywhere in between your local cheesemaker to Google, every company is a tech company.
Established brands have the luxury of a large customer base, brand equity, extensive logistical advantages and working capital. They know what they’re doing and they do it well. When you combine the strengths of a larger player with a hungry and fast-moving startup, you get a completely new entity, much stronger than the sum of its parts.
Look no further than the partnership of Niantic and Nintendo. The former, an internal Google startup that spun out as its own entity out of San Francisco; the latter, an established gaming and software company with a market cap of $20 billion dollars. Combining Niantic’s expertise in AR (Augmented Reality) and Nintendo’s brand and game equity of Pokemon, they created the biggest and fastest adopted mobile app experience in history.
The way to move forward, the way to survive and grow, is to harness all the power and energy, creativity and experimentation and jump in. It’s what General Motors did when they partnered with the ride-hailing company Lyft in a deal worth more than $500 million. It’s why mega company Johnson & Johnson continues to invest its life-sciences incubator, JLABS.
And it’s the reason established financial institutions like Westoba Credit Union partner with Grow Financial to offer multi-channel access to their dedicated consumer base. We’ve partnered with some of Canada’s biggest credit unions to offer consumers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba first-access to online lending services. They gain access to a leading fintech platform that can be integrated and launched quickly, while we get to advance our tech with new data and user analytics. Most importantly, consumers win with an ever-improving and personalized experience.
With few exceptions, every company depends on technology. Car manufacturers, clothing designers, musicians, politicians, artisans, health care professionals, builders and banks all use technology to create and deliver the best possible experience to consumers. They collect data at every step of their process to make their service more accessible, more efficient and more engaging. More information means that products and processes can be fine-tuned to a degree of specificity that makes it feel completely customized for every user, yet scalable and cost-efficient for companies.
The cycle requires agility—the ability to react quickly and go-to-market with a new product or feature before competitors. That’s why larger enterprise-level companies benefit from the services and platforms developed by tech startups. Rather than undertake costly construction of proprietary systems and software, it’s smarter (and cost-effective) to partner with a team dedicated to the purpose.
Enterprise tech partnerships offer incumbents a way to innovate without the heavy costs associated with building from the ground up. It provides smaller tech companies access to a larger consumer base, expanded influence and an expanded platform to test and learn from. Consumers get an improved experience that is more accessible, responsive and rewarding (either via an improved product or cost-savings). Customers expect a streamlined, 21st century, modern experience that can only be achieved with cutting edge data science and machine-learning. Production, marketing, sales and customer service cycles are dependant on technology, even when the actual product is not technology.
Because, ultimately, what you’re selling—what consumers actually consume—is experience.
