Question

Topic: Strategy

Strategic Alliance Questions Of Importance

Posted by Anonymous on 3/2/2004 at 4:11 PM ET 50 Points
Working for an IT services consulting firm, I am scheduled for a meeting with a potential alliance partner whom sells software. The software firm has no services organization and would like my firm to implement their software solutions. They are interested in licensing revenue and we are interested in services revenue, therefore working together results in little friction.

Obviously leads and lead generation would need to shared on both sides as this may be the most important aspect of the alliance. What are some good questions to ask and/or what are areas of concern that I may be overlooking that once answered would make certain that this alliance provides mutual benefit?
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  • Posted by Blaine Wilkerson on 3/3/2004 at 12:47 AM Member
    Great advice! I agree 100% with everything posted above.

    Another thing to consider is intellectual property. A lot of software companies have licensing agreements with other software firms for certain aspects of their programs.

    For example, one of my clients is an A.I. software corp. They have brilliant applications for networks, email, IM, systems maintainance, etc. When you break down the programs, they own the A.I. code, AT&T owns the voice and text to speech codes, and another 3D company provides the avatar and animation codes.

    Be sure to ask about this!!!! If a deal goes sour with one of the supplemental companies or one of them goes bankrupt, everything could fall apart. This obviously makes the deal more complicated because you would have to investigate the stability of their licenses, if any.

    So, ask them to provide proof if they say they own it (you don't want some "behind the curtain" inventor who owns majority share to be able to pull the plug) and if multiple licenses exist, insist on DETAILED information of the companies and the agreements.

    Good Luck!!
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