Business Models 101: Key Partners
In this part we will discuss the Key Partners related to your
business. The people, companies that you rely on to support you (of course
usually by paying them).
I have to repeat it on every page but starting something on your own, creating value for you, your family and
the world is a totally recommendable thing to do. You want to create your
company. This is GREAT. The world has been made by
people like you. Entrepreneurs. Self-Made Men, Creators, Builders people
that believed an obstacle is just another great challenge to overcome, to
solve and put behind them as an achievement.
The Key Partners
When you have an idea and start developing it, everything
seems pretty achievable by yourself during the first 5 minutes of thinking.
But once you start to look at it seriously and stat listing
everything you will need to make out of it a success story, you will see
that you might need some external help. This external help can be for
material things or for services.
Material things can be consumables,
buildings, machine, furniture, computers, material to build your products,
etc...
Services can for example
accounting support, servers for your website, delivery service, building,
programming, secretarial help, etc...If these services and material things
you need are contributing heavily to your business you should set them as
key partners or if they cost you only once a year a small amount only, then
you should put them in the cost structure part of your business model.
Lets say your passion is accounting (ah ah ah who is
passionate about accounting but let's assume so...) then you might want to
associate with other accounting companies that might not be competitors but
could be partners because they provide services that are complementary to
yours (that's called synergy if you 1 + 1 is more than 2). In that case the
accounting companies are key partners.
If your passion would be making a cupcake factory, then you
might not be so in love with accounting but you will need an accountant to
make your tax return properly. In that case he is part of the cost
structure. But if his cost are only negligible in your cost structure, then
he might not be a key partner but just a yearly cost. If you start making a
lot of home and local made pancakes, then one of your key partners might
become the local flour producer which will provide you with this main
ingredient.
Here are the questions you have to ask yourself
about the Key Partners:
Who
are the key buyers? Could they become a partner is a question ask yourself
and if positive, then ask them too.
Who are the key suppliers?
Which key resource is
dependent of key partners or suppliers?
The purpose is always the
increase of productivity of your company, the reduction of risk, dependence
and the acquisition of resources to the best possible price.
Here a list of possible Key Partners:
-
Your suppliers (if the volume you buy to them are big enough, you could
envisage a partnership for the long term)
-
Another company like your could become a partner if you are not
delivering to the same customers.
-
Another company could join together to buy in bigger quantities at some
common suppliers.
- Your customers (if you deliver to companies, some could become
partners)
Previous:
Key Resources
Next: the Cost Structure
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excel business model canvas Template from here.
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