Strategic Alliance Magazine

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You too could be a 2014 ASAP Alliance Excellence Award Finalist or Winner! But ONLY if you submit an Alliance Excellence Award Nomination by Thursday, October 31. ASAP’s Alliance Excellence Awards Committee is now accepting nominations for the 2014 ASAP Alliance Excellence Awards. Start thinking NOW about how to tell the story of an alliance or program that has taken your company (and even the world) to new heights! Be recognized by your peers at the March 2014 ASAP Global Alliance Summit—the premier event in alliance management—as a leader in partnership success and innovation. Award categories include: n Alliance Program Excellence n Individual Alliance Excellence n Innovative Alliance Best Practice n Alliance for Corporate Social Responsibility

Join the prestigious ranks of finalists and winners that have included F. Hoffmann–La Roche, SAS, Citrix, Schneider Electric, Oracle, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Teradata, Deloitte, SAS, Coherence, IBM, SAP, Cisco, HP, Xerox, Turkcell, Novartis, Eli Lilly and Company, Ipsen, Inspiration Pharmaceuticals, P&G, Harley Davidson, Starbucks, and Federal Express, among others. Learn more and begin your application TODAY at strategic-alliances.org/ alliance-excellence-awards/

960 Turnpike St, Canton, MA 02021 USA | Tel: +1-781-562-1630 | strategic-alliances.org | info@strategic-alliances.org


Don’t Just State the Obvious

Find the deeper insights all alliance managers need to succeed – in ASAP’s Fourth State of Alliance Management Study It’s clear that the alliance management profession has come a long way since the first ASAP State of Alliance Management Study in 2001. But the what, how, and why of our progress as a profession – and especially where we’re headed and what we need to do to improve – are not so obvious. Deeper answers require deeper research and analysis. With three more editions of the study conducted over the course of a decade, our fourth version, The State of Alliance Management: Past, Present, Future, provides this unparalleled and unprecedented depth. Contact ASAP today to order copies for you and your colleagues. Inside this crucial survey of 272 individuals representing 230 companies across the world, you will find powerful insights about: n Alliance success rates – and factors that influence outcomes n The evolution of alliance professionals and roles n The effectiveness of proliferating alliance tools n The growing focus on the importance of alliance culture

Order your copies today!

The State of Alliance Management: Past, Present, Future is $59.99 for ASAP Members and $99.99 for nonmembers. Contact Pam Goodell at +1 781-562-1630 ext. 202 or pgoodell@strategic-alliances.org to get your copy today!

960 Turnpike St, Canton MA 02021 USA Tel: +1- 781-562-1630 strategic-alliances.org info@strategic-alliances.org


OUR HEART IS ALWAYS IN OUR WORK BECAUSE OUR PATIENTS ARE ALWAYS ON OUR MIND. The remarkable impact we make on people’s lives comes from a relentless focus on what each patient needs and how to deliver it. We are a biopharmaceutical company that combines science, passion, and expertise to bring new solutions to health and healthcare. We measure our success by the impact we make on patients’ lives. abbvie.com

©2013 AbbVie.


up front pay It Forward

Taking the Time to Help Grow ASAP Will Simultaneously Advance the Profession and Your Career By Jack Pearson

AS A VETERAN ALLIANCE MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONAL, I have seen our profession grow from one that was firmly established largely in two areas of the business world—IT and biopharma—into one that has transitioned quickly to become an occupation that is now gaining traction in several industries. We were once considered primarily an operational discipline, but we have now become an essential strategic element in navigating a new business landscape of constantly shifting business models, coopetition, and collaborative innovation. While many organizations scramble to figure out how to reorder their business practices to function in this reality, we have long been used to making an uncertain landscape feel more like firm ground. Due in great part to this agility, you’ll find in these pages that the participants in our systems integrator virtual roundtable (part of our annual IT Special Focus, beginning on page 24) confirm that it is now much easier for alliance management to get the attention of senior leadership. With that said, our effort toward achieving a greater level of support from the C-Suite, while improving, has some distance yet to go. It is also worth noting that it is not just the most senior level of management that we need to impress. There are still plenty of our business colleagues we need to work with to show that alliance management is not only its own discipline, it’s a professional approach that utilizes highly recognized and valued skill sets that will make a tremendous impact on the business world. As our story on publicprivate partnerships in this issue notes, in the coming months and years alliances will help to alleviate societal problems such as poverty, climate change, and disease, for example. Quarter 3, 2013

The question remains: how do we continue to close in on these goals? The ASAP community has done a tremendous job of building alliance management into a vocation that is a true calling for people who want to bring alive a partnering business model that is recognized more and more by senior leaders as the way business is done today, rather than just take on a traditional job on the career ladder. We’ve established a robust certification program that ensures consistency in how alliance management principles are applied, and ASAP’s 4th State of Alliance Management Study describes and validates the greater value a professionally managed collaboration can bring to an organization versus one that is treated as an operational exercise. The efforts of our talented ASAP and ASAP Media staff and dedicated contributing leaders also resulted in the release of The ASAP Handbook of Alliance Management, the definitive collection of the vocation’s practices and principles; the establishment of the ASAP Global Alliance Summit and ASAP BioPharma Conference as the premier annual events in alliance management; and even more phenomenal programming and networking delivered around the globe by our regional chapters. Now, we need to reach out further to those who can benefit greatly from us. There remain individuals and organizations that

have no idea we’re here, and more important, what we can do for them. Others, as noted in this issue’s edition of The Close, are just coming around to the idea that alliances are here to stay and now need guidance on how to integrate them into their reality. To continue with our push, it’s important that you ensure your Corporate or Global Member organization’s roster spots are filled with individuals who are, or are interested in, engaging with ASAP’s offerings, and that you invite your alliance management colleagues to attend a chapter event and ultimately become members. We must look for other vehicles and venues that can help raise the awareness of our profession—and our association—among the various levels, departments, and professional communities that touch alliances. Remember that growing your alliance community and your association is indelibly a part of growing your profession. And as the awareness of alliance management continues to expand, so do the possibilities for your own career. n

Jack Pearson, acting president and CEO of ASAP, is currently serving as acting executive publisher of Strategic Alliance Magazine. 5


Quarter 3, 2013

The magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals AN ASAP MEDIA PUBLICATION www.ASAPmedia.org www.strategic-alliances.org EDITORIAL TEAM Jack Pearson, Acting Executive Publisher +1-781-562-1630 ext. 201 jpearson@strategic-alliances.org John W. DeWitt, Publisher +1-978-544-1866 jdewitt@ASAPmedia.org Jon Lavietes, Editorial Director +1-415-572-4408 jlavietes@ASAPmedia.org Michael Burke, Editor-in-Chief +1-413-345-1624 mburke@ASAPmedia.org Greg Caulton, Creative Director +1-413-461-7096 gcaulton@ASAPmedia.org Gary Lee, Online Media Manager +1-978-544-1866 glee@ASAPmedia.org Michelle Duga, Sponsorship Coordinator +1-978-544-1866 mduga@ASAPmedia.org Emily Bayard, Image Researcher +1-413-461-7096 ebayard@ASAPmedia.org Ben Olson, Graphic Designer +1-585-245-4796 bolson@ASAPmedia.org ASAP STAFF Jack Pearson, Acting President and CEO +1-781-562-1630 ext. 201 jpearson@strategic-alliances.org Pam Goodell, CA-AM, Vice President of Operations +1-781-562-1630 ext. 202 pgoodell@strategic-alliances.org Lori Gold, Senior Manager of Membership Services +1-781-562-1630 ext. 203 lgold@strategic-alliances.org Michele Shannon, CA-AM, CMP Senior Meeting & Event Manager +1-781-562-1630 ext. 204 mshannon@strategic-alliances.org Kimberly T. Miller, Marketing Manager +1-781-562-1630 ext. 208 kmiller@strategic-alliances.org Brendan Ward, Administrative Support +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200 bward@strategic-alliances.org Diane Lemkin, Accounting Manager +1-781-562-1630 ext. 206 dianel@strategic-alliances.org Jennifer Silver, Certification Coordinator +1-781-562-1630 ext. 205 jsilver@strategic-alliances.org Michele Yudysky, Membership Coordinator +1-781-562-1630 ext. 209 myudysky@strategic-alliances.org © Copyright 2013 Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. All Rights Reserved.

in this issue

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n COVER STORY

Next Wave

With New Models, Creative Financing, and Enlightened Thinking, Public-Private Partnerships Are Taking Collaboration to the Next Level—and Moving the World Toward a More Sustainable, Healthy Future | By John DeWitt and Michael Burke

In this second of two articles, we look at the efforts of several companies that are leveraging their particular areas of expertise to collaborate with governments, universities, and nonprofits to solve global problems and address some of society’s critical unmet needs.

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n SPECIAL FOCUS: IT

Creating New Markets and New Business Value

New Study of Best Practices in Go-to-Market Technology Alliances Reveals What Sets High-Performing Alliances Apart | By Norma Watenpaugh, CSAP

What is it about high-performing alliances that enables them to outpace their peers in creating more corporate value and achieving new heights? That is the question Phoenix Consulting Group’s 2013 Alliance Best Practice Research study sought to answer. Our guest author shares the findings of the report.

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n 2013 BIOPHARMA PREVIEW

The Best and the Brightest Come to Boston

ASAP’s 2013 BioPharma Conference Will Rock the Hub in November | By Michael Burke

The ASAP BioPharma Conference returns to New England this fall. Under the theme “Challenge. Change. Connect,” this year’s event will explore how the typical, traditional alliance context is evolving into a comprehensive partner ecosystem that includes service providers, academic institutions, foundations, diagnostic companies, and e-health organizations, in addition to the more familiar discovery, development, and commercial alliances that have long been core to the industry. 6

Strategic Alliance Magazine


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n FEEDBACK

ASAP Membership Survey 2013

You Spoke. We Heard You. So We’re Enhancing Your Membership Experience!

We are happy to report that in many cases our current benefits are creating the member experience you seek. Moreover, many initiatives are currently in the works to greatly enhance that experience moving forward.

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n Governance Design

Making the Minutes Count

The Critical Importance of Accurately Documenting Alliance Meetings By David Thompson, CA-AM, and Steven E. Twait, CSAP

One might think that taking notes at a meeting is a trivial task. That outlook could lead to dangerous repercussions for your alliance, according to the authors of this article. Here is how to keep dependable records of discussions between alliance stakeholders. Sponsored by Eli Lilly & Co.

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n SPECIAL FOCUS: IT

More Partners, More Players

Three Systems Integrators Break Down the Disruptive Technologies Landscape and What It Means for the Future of IT Alliances | By Jon Lavietes

In separate interviews, alliance professionals representing three well-recognized systems integrators talked about the effects that cloud, social media, mobile, and big data technologies are having on the alliance practice’s standing with the senior leadership, its relationship with technology partners, the way it goes about meeting its clients’ needs, and the future of partnering.

Regular Features: 5 n UP FRONT Taking the Time to Help Grow ASAP Will Simultaneously Advance the Profession and Your Career 11 n COLLABORATIVE BUZZ Alliance News Briefs | People in the News ASAP & ASAP Partner Calendar of Events | ASAP Chapter Updates Quarter 3, 2013

15 n ASAP MEMBER SPOTLIGHT Getting Partnering Straight Brocade Aligns Technology Alliances and Reseller Program with End Customer Needs as Lines Between Each Continue to Blur

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Quarter 3, 2013

The magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals

in this issue

ASAP Executive COMMITTEE Russ Buchanan, CSAP ASAP Chairman of the Board Vice President, Worldwide Alliances, Xerox Corp. Harry Atkins, CSAP ASAP Treasurer Senior Director, Corporate Development, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Inc. Brian Handley, CA-AM ASAP Secretary Business Development, Emerson Corp. Christine Carberry, CSAP Chairman, ASAP Knowledge Base & Research Committee Vice President, Program & Alliance Management, EnVivo Pharmaceuticals Snehal Desai, CA-AM Chairman, ASAP Marketing Committee Global Marketing Director, The Dow Chemical Company Grif Morrel, CSAP Chairman, ASAP Chapter Presidents’ Council Senior Manager, Sales Business Development and Operations, Cisco Systems, Inc.

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n Your Career

The Alliance Manager as Interventionist

When Conflicts Arise, It Is Up to the Alliance Manager to Bring All Parties Together and Guide Them Through to Resolution By Stuart Kliman and Laura Visioni

Alliances will eventually hit some rough patches, which will necessitate that the alliance manager play the role of firefighter. Our guest authors talk about the skill set and formal process needed to put out the blaze.

Alistair Pim, CSAP Chairman, ASAP Professional Development Committee Vice President, Global Strategic Alliances, Schneider Electric

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Jan Twombly, CSAP Chairman, ASAP Program Committee President, The Rhythm of Business, Inc.

Bringing Years of Alliance Experience to a Company That Already “Gets” Partnering, Laura McCluer Looks to Expand ANCILE Solutions’ Alliance Horizons By Michael Burke

Strategic Alliance Magazine is published quarterly. Publisher is The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals, 960 Turnpike Street, Canton, MA 02021, +1-781-562-1630. Subscriptions are $99 for one year, $189 for two years. Canadian subscriptions are $149 per year. All other international subscriptions are $199 (using air mail). Subscription inquiries: +1 781-562-1630. Periodicals postage is paid in Chicopee, MA, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to STRATEGIC ALLIANCE MAGAZINE, 960 Turnpike Street, Canton, MA 02021. Copyright 2013, The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For reprints, please contact The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals, +1-781-562-1630.

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n Alliance Champion

Partners Are Us

This issue’s Alliance Champion feature profiles a seasoned alliance veteran in the IT industry who recently signed on to help ANCILE Solutions, Inc., a company that was built on alliances and will grow through partnerships as well, find new partners, enter new markets, and deploy ASAP best practices. Laura McCluer will be leveraging her extensive work experience and a lifetime’s worth of partnering expertise in tackling this new challenge.

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n THE CLOSE

The End of the Affair

Not Everyone’s Heard the Good News About the Benefits of True Strategic Alliance Management—But We Can Change That | By John DeWitt and Michael Burke

Some industries have accepted that they need to find partners to dance with in order to survive in business. But do they realize this waltz isn’t just the prelude to a one-night stand? ASAP members need to show the newbies how to make a long-term commitment to alliance management. Strategic Alliance Magazine


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O r g a n i z a ti

Strategy Alliance Portfolio Management

o gy d ol

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Strategies and Skills for Enabling Successful Alliance Execution

tr u

Individual Alliance Management

Results

Cul tur

e e & Peopl

Join our team October 8th and 9th at the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge, MA for a two-day intensive alliance management training program Program Features n

Strengthen the personal skills that are essential to managing complex working relationships through a series of interactive round-table discussions, case studies, scenario analysis and role play

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Network and share best practices with your alliance management colleagues

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Learn how to develop and effectively implement the key alliance management processes necessary to maximize the value delivered by your organizations alliances

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Create an action plan to help your organization execute more effectively on its alliance

Illustrative Content To Include n

The skills required to intervene effectively on troubled working relationships including conflict resolution, joint problem solving and negotiation methodologies

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Best practice alliance management processes including the New Alliance Launch Process, Alliance Portfolio Stratification, Alliance Health Check and Alliance Scorecarding

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Key alliance success factors and common challenges related thereto

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Governance models, decision making processes and leadership strategies

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Building out the supporting infrastructure needed for a successful Alliance Management Capability

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Alliance strategy including Build-Buy-Ally Analysis and Alliance Due Diligence

Who Should Attend? n

You and your colleagues!

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Alliance Managers

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Key functional or business leaders who play a role on your company’s most important relationships

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Earn points towards your CA-AM and CSAP ASAP certification! Interested in learning more? Find us on the web at: www.vantagepartners.com/Open-Enrollment-Training.aspx or Contact directly us at: alliancetraining@vantagepartners.com Quarter 3, 2013

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ST! ok t: A L EY ndbo men H T ILE AP HaanageGuideday! H W e AS e M er’s to Th llianc tition copy of AA Prac your er d r o

Alliance Management?

We wrote the book on Alliance Management! The ASAP Handbook of Alliance Management: A Practitioner’s Guide, 3rd edition, is the only compendium of alliance management practices, principles, and current professional standards that puts all the information you need in one unique, indispensable resource. This new publication provides: n An unequaled body of knowledge for alliance professionals at every level n A substantive update and revision of previous editions n All-new material, including a new section on emerging topics in alliance management For your career, your alliances, and your company’s alliance management practice, you can’t afford to be without The ASAP Handbook of Alliance Management: A Practitioner’s Guide.

Order your copy today!

$299.99 for nonmembers. Up to 60% discount for ASAP Members. For more information or to order, go to strategic-alliances.org/handbook.

960 Turnpike St, Canton MA 02021 USA Tel: +1-781-562-1630 strategic-alliances.org info@strategic-alliances.org


Collaborative Buzz

Family Feuds and Friends with Benefits: Oracle Gets Busy with Alliances, Makes Peace with Old Enemies By Jon Lavietes and Michael Burke

In separate late June announcements that might seem akin to the Lakers and Celtics joining forces, the Yankees and Red Sox holding hands and singing “Kumbaya,” the Hatfields and McCoys intermarrying, or lions and lambs starting a commune, enterprise software giant Oracle has formed a number of new partnerships—some involving old rivals with whom Oracle has feuded in the past. These include alliances with ASAP Global Member Microsoft and new ASAP Corporate Member Salesforce. com. The former agreement involves Oracle’s database software running on Microsoft’s cloud-based operating systems, and as much as Oracle has historically hated Microsoft, realistically the two companies have too many mutual customers not to play nice. As analyst Steve White, program director for IDC’s Strategic Alliances Leadership Council, told Strategic Alliance Magazine last year, “At the end of the day, it comes down to what the customer wants. That’s really the only single pivot point everyone can work to.” Salesforce.com-Oracle makes for another “team of rivals” story. It’s not just that Salesforce.com is one of the original forefathers of the cloud movement, born out of the belief that customers would eventually tire of maintaining their own software apps provided by the likes of Oracle. The feud between the two companies has been personal at the executive level, with respective CEOs Marc Benioff and Larry Ellison trading barbs over the past decade—Benioff publicly referred to Oracle’s offerings as a “false cloud,” while Ellison reportedly called Salesforce a “roach motel”—after Benioff left Oracle to start Salesforce. Quarter 3, 2013

com and then kicked Ellison off its board early on. (More than one scribe in the blogosphere has referred to the recent Benioff-Ellison rapprochement as a budding “bromance.”) But as with Oracle-Microsoft, there’s a lot at stake, and many reasons (read: dollar signs) for the two archenemies to get along. Oracle apps have to work out of the box with Salesforce.com; similarly, Salesforce.com still doesn’t have the breadth and depth of applications Oracle has and needs to augment its offerings in certain areas. Meanwhile, Oracle and ASAP Global Member Dell recently announced an expanded global alliance combining Oracle’s enterprise software with Dell’s x86 hardware infrastructure, in which Oracle’s infrastructure technologies such as Oracle Linux, Oracle VM, and Oracle Enterprise Manager will be optimized to run on x86 solutions from Dell. In a unique arrangement in the industry, the two companies will streamline customer support offerings to provide companies of all sizes with a single point of contact—from Dell—for all support-related needs. Dell expects the integrated offerings to be available to customers in the second half of 2013. Said Oracle president Mark Hurd, “This is just the beginning of a lot of great things to come.”

Finally, following on the Microsoft and Salesforce.com announcements, Oracle and NetSuite reported that they have forged a strategic alliance that will see the companies ensure data portability between their various “human capital management” systems. The two companies will work together to create a product that blends Oracle’s HCM cloud with NetSuite’s enterprise resource planning software to link up HR and finance systems within midsize companies. Of course this alliance too is all in the family: Ellison helped found NetSuite in 1998 and remains majority shareholder, and NetSuite chief Zach Nelson is a former Oracle executive. In the true spirit of coopetition, the two companies both compete and collaborate with each other, and both also compete against application developer SAP and cloud HCM application vendor Workday. Oracle and NetSuite are also now partnering with Deloitte to help the latter develop a team of practitioners to help companies use their software. “These are two companies that like each other,” Hurd said on a conference call to announce the Oracle-NetSuite partnership. “We’re going to put a lot of effort into making this alliance extremely successful.” 11


Collaborative Buzz

ASAP News

Cisco’s ASAP Certification Workshops Go Bicoastal ASAP Global Member Cisco will be hosting the next two installments of the 2013 ASAP North American Certification Workshop Series with CA-AM and CSAP trainings on both coasts. Alliance professionals looking to become ASAPcertified can attend these workshops at Cisco’s Herndon, Va., or San Jose, Calif., offices this fall to learn the competencies for devising and implementing strategic partnerships: Herndon, Va. Sept. 24: CSAP Workshop Sept. 25: CA-AM Workshop San Jose, Calif. Oct. 15: CSAP Workshop Oct. 16: CA-AM Workshop In addition, Certification Workshops will be offered at the 2013 ASAP BioPharma Conference this Nov. 20–22 at the Hyatt Regency Boston.

“ASAP’s strategic partner expertise will allow us to raise the bar higher.” Certified alliance managers tend to drive their alliances to fruition at a higher rate than uncertified personnel. Obtaining and maintaining alliance management certification helps you to develop the requisite core, contextual, and business skills for facilitating all parts of the alliance life cycle, from negotiation to planning to execution to reevaluation. It also ensures that you are utilizing the profession’s latest tools, methodologies, and principles and keeps you on a path toward a highly successful career. For more information, go to www. strategic-alliances.org.

Verizon Becomes ASAP Global Member; New Corporate Members Added

ASAP membership continues to grow rapidly, with the Individual, Corpo12

rate, and Global Member ranks all increasing recently. In June, Verizon was officially announced as a new ASAP Global Member. “Our broad portfolio of partners helps us deliver leading industry-specific solutions that are transforming the way our clients conduct business,” said Janet Schijns, vice president of medium business and channels for Verizon Enterprise Solutions. “Alliances have long been central to our business, and ASAP’s strategic partner expertise will allow us to raise the bar even higher.” “Partnering excellence is a key ingredient in Verizon’s many impressive accomplishments, and a critical competency if you want to thrive in the technology industry and the business world at large,” said Jack Pearson, acting CEO of ASAP. “ASAP is the premier destination for the organizations around the world that are most proficient in their alliance capabilities, and Verizon is a strong addition to our community of companies who continually push boundaries in their collaborative ventures.” Meanwhile, several new ASAP Corporate Members have joined the fold, including Salesforce.com, National Grid, Deloitte Canada, Konica Minolta, Colt Technology Services, Productivity Alberta, and Blue Coat Systems. Welcome to all the new ASAP members!

ASAP and ASAP Partner Events ASAP Silicon Valley Chapter and SVAMA Event: Networking, Baseball, Drinks, and Dinner at San Jose Giants Game

Thursday, August 29, 2013, 6:30–9:30 p.m. PDT, San Jose Municipal Stadium, 588 E. Alma Ave., San Jose, Calif., USA (for more information go to www.eventbrite.com/event/5759813758)

2013 ASAP BioPharma Conference

Wednesday, November 20 – Friday, November 22, 2013, Hyatt Regency Boston, One Avenue De Lafayette, Boston, Mass., USA (go to www.strategicalliances.org for more information and to register)

2014 ASAP Global Alliance Summit

Sunday, March 9 – Thursday, March 13, 2014, Talking Stick Resort, 9800 E. Indian Bend Rd., Scottsdale, Ariz., USA (check www.strategic-alliances.org periodically for more information as it becomes available)

Alliance News

From Russia, Without the Love: Aeroflot May Exit SkyTeam Alliance

Russian state-controlled airline Aeroflot is apparently considering exiting from its membership in the SkyTeam alliance, according to a Reuters report. The story cited “unfavorable agreements with other members,” in particular U.S.based Delta Air Lines. “There is no point in cooperating with them,” said a source close to Aeroflot’s board. He told Reuters he doubted, however, that Aeroflot would drop out of the alliance unless there is a political decision to do so, which must come from the Kremlin. Aeroflot agreed to join SkyTeam in 2004, due to close ties with France. Air France–KLM is a leading member of the alliance. Reuters cited Russian newspaper reports and sources close to Aeroflot’s board as saying the company was not happy with the development of its routes in the United States, where Delta charges relatively high fares that cannot be undercut by Aeroflot or the 18 other SkyTeam members. But dropping out of the alliance could cost Aeroflot $20 million, and raises the possibility that the airline may consider becoming more competitive by Strategic Alliance Magazine


joining Star Alliance, the biggest airline marketing group at 27 members.

Time Sprints into Mobile

Time Inc. is moving aggressively into the mobile space—and a new strategic alliance with the Sprint Nextel Corp. should help put its content in front of the eyeballs of millions of mobile users, according to Folio magazine. Time will be working with Sprint to develop a customizable mobile app for SprintZone, which comes preloaded on Sprint mobile phones, including entertainment, lifestyle, sports, and business news. Content within SprintZone will be updated in real time, pulling stories, photography, and video from Time Inc. brands, with users able to customize their experience by brand. Time will also provide content for Sprint’s retail stores—the device and network provider will use branded content to demonstrate the capabilities of their devices in-store. Time already has a relationship with Apple’s iAd, which is built into the iOS operating system that powers the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, allowing brands to incorporate a variety of interactive experiences in an ad.

Paradise by the Dashboard Light? Mitsubishi and Pioneer Bolster Alliance

Aiming to strengthen its business relationship with Pioneer Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation announced in May that it had entered into a capital and business alliance agreement with Pioneer, under which Mitsubishi Electric will invest approximately 4 billion yen in the latter in exchange for the acquisition of approximately 20 million common shares of Pioneer issued through a thirdparty allotment. The two companies have mutually strengthened their capabilities and efficiencies by collaborating on the development of a car navigation systems platform. To respond to ongoing changes in the car electronics industry, Mitsubishi Electric plans to enter into a Quarter 3, 2013

new joint development agreement with Pioneer that will further tweak this offering to keep up with future multimedia car navigation technologies.

Cannon Fodder: AstraZeneca Partners with Research Institute on Oncology Compounds ASAP Global Member AstraZeneca has turned to the Sarah Cannon Research Institute (SCRI) to help several of its oncology compounds through the clinical stages of the drug development life cycle. Specifically, the parties will work together on molecular profiling to classify tissue based on genetic profiles for the purpose of treating cancers and predicting response to therapy. Under the agreement, SCRI will work with AstraZeneca to identify potential patients for clinical trials and help explore biomarkers that predict response to specific treatments. In addition, SCRI’s enhanced relationship with AstraZeneca will provide clinical program development leadership, medical expertise and oversight, and operational contract research organization (CRO) trial management for early phase clinical development of multiple oncology compounds.

Sharp Looking to Alliances with Samsung and Others to Bounce Back from Losses Japanese display maker Sharp Corporation, a supplier to Apple and others, seeks to increase sales to Apple rival Samsung under a three-year agreement after posting a $5.4 billion net loss in the last financial year, according to Reuters. “For Sharp, the way forward is to forge various alliances to generate new opportunities,” said new Sharp president Kozo Takahashi, whose predecessor held the top post for barely a year. He added that Sharp would look at expanding cooperation with Samsung in technology for small screens used in smartphones and other mobile devices.

Corgenix and Lilly Collaborate on Diagnostic Technology

Denver-based Corgenix Medical Corporation, a worldwide developer and marketer of diagnostic test kits, announced in May that it had entered into a collaboration agreement with ASAP Global Member Eli Lilly and Company to develop diagnostic technology in support of a Lilly oncology pipeline program. Under the terms of the agreement, the two companies will collaborate to further advance this proprietary diagnostic technology originally developed by Lilly. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The collaboration with Lilly is part of Corgenix’s recently announced expansion of its Contract Services Business Unit for contract product development, technology application, and manufacturing for the health care and biotechnology industries.

Servier and miRagen Alliance Expands

ASAP Corporate Member Servier, a privately run French research-based pharmaceutical company with expertise in the development of treatments for cardiovascular diseases, and miRagen Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing innovative micro­ RNA-based therapeutics, announced in late May that Servier has elected to add a new target as part of its existing, twoyear-old agreement for advancing the research, development, and commercialization of microRNA-based drug candidates for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. With this selection, Servier and miRagen now have three microRNA programs under development. “Our selection of a third target is indicative of the strength of our partnership with miRagen, as well as our shared commitment to develop microRNAbased therapies for the treatment of cardiovascular disease,” said Dr. Jean-Paul Vilaine, head of Servier’s Cardiovascular Research Unit. “We look forward to 13


Collaborative Buzz our continued collaboration to advance promising drug candidates.”

X-Ray Specs: Konica Minolta and GE Healthcare Team Up on Imaging Technology One of the newest ASAP Corporate Members, Konica Minolta, and GE Healthcare have expanded their nearly decade-long relationship to enable Konica Minolta to distribute GE’s AeroDR ultrasmall digital X-ray imaging technology outside of North America, in more than 50 countries worldwide. Both of these entities’ parent corporations made a leap of sorts years ago to get into health care, and strategic alliances are helping them diversify product portfolios and reach new markets.

As part of the alliance, Deloitte and NASA will jointly offer a range of services in the quickly evolving risk-sciences arena, such as risk modeling and simulation. Houston, We Have an Alliance: Deloitte and NASA to Partner

Bradway said in a statement. “This alliance will help accelerate development and commercialization of Amgen medicines for patients in Japan.”

As part of the alliance, Deloitte and NASA will jointly offer a range of services in the quickly evolving risksciences arena, such as risk modeling and simulation, to help oil and gas companies eliminate blind spots in their decision making. Such services apply sophisticated risk-modeling and simulation tools and techniques like Bayesian networks and agent-based modeling to reduce uncertainties in engineering and operations at oil and gas companies, in much the same way NASA has done with its space program.

Yoshihiko Hatanaka, president and chief executive of Astellas, said, “We look forward to entering this alliance with Amgen and believe it will strengthen our pipeline to address unmet medical needs, as well as enable us to obtain growth drivers. We will work closely with Amgen to build the joint venture, which will provide innovative medicines to patients in Japan.”

JV Team: Amgen and Astellas Joined in Japan

These services, which include several operational risk-management offerings, are aimed at companies looking to minimize the risk of catastrophic failures—the kinds of dramatic mishaps that, while highly unlikely, can occur in remote and harsh environments.

ASAP Corporate Members Amgen Inc. and Astellas Pharma Inc. recently announced that they will form a joint venture to provide new medicines in Japan, according to Pharma Times and company statements. The companies said they will codevelop and sell five drugs currently in Amgen’s pipeline, with the first commercial launch in Japan potentially coming in 2016. This includes two drugs for gastric cancer— a large unmet need in Asia—and one for two types of blood cancer, as well as a new treatment for osteoporosis and another for hyperlipidemia, all of which are in various stages of clinical development.

“Activities like deep-water drilling, undersea production, and pipeline operations all face the same kind of ‘black swan’ events that pose a threat to space

“This alliance reflects our long-term commitment to the Japan market and is an important step in our global expansion efforts,” Amgen CEO Robert

In a move designed to bring advanced risk-management capabilities to America’s energy industry, the Deloitte Center for Energy Solutions and the NASA Johnson Space Center have entered into a strategic alliance to offer services to oil and gas companies.

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exploration,” said David Traylor, a principal at Deloitte & Touche LLP. “Our strategic alliance with NASA will integrate the space agency’s 50-plus years of experience preventing and recovering from catastrophic accidents in human space flight into Deloitte’s advanced-risk strategies—applying state-of-science capabilities to oil and gas companies back here on earth. Ultimately, proactively identifying and mitigating low-probability yet high-impact events can save lives, resources, money, reputation, and environmental disruption.”

Amgen and Astellas will establish a Tokyo-based joint venture to be called Amgen Astellas BioPharma KK that is expected to begin operating on Oct. 1. It will be led and staffed by employees of both companies and new hires. Amgen will initially own 51 percent of the joint venture and it will become fully owned by the U.S. biotech as soon as 2020, the companies added.

Seattle Genetics and Bayer HealthCare to Collaborate

Seattle Genetics, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on the development and commercialization of monoclonal antibody–based therapies for the treatment of cancer, has entered into a new antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) collaboration with ASAP Corporate Member Bayer HealthCare. Bayer will pay upfront and option exercise fees of up to $20 million for worldwide rights to utilize Seattle Genetics’ auristatin-based ADC technology with antibodies to several oncology targets. Seattle Genetics is also eligible to receive up to approximately $500 million in potential milestone payments, as well as royalties on worldwide net sales of any resulting products under the multitarget collaboration. Bayer is responsible for research, product development, manufacturing, and commercialization of all products under the collaboration. Continued on page 52 Strategic Alliance Magazine


R E G U L A R

F E AT U R E

spotlight member

Getting partnering Straight Brocade Aligns Technology Alliances and Reseller Program with End Customer Needs as Lines Between Each Continue to Blur By Jon Lavietes

Partnering to integrate solutions has never been easy in the world of IT. Even a decade or so ago, technology partners dealt with tremendous complexity in creating hardware-software-server “stacks.” However, enabling value-added resellers (VARs) to deliver an IT company’s solutions was a little more straightforward at the time. Usually, all a product vendor had to do was deliver sales and marketing collateral and establish a 24hour support line, and its channel partners could take it from there to drive sales on their own.

Brocade in a Flash

The many shades of gray in these software-, platform-, and infrastruc75 Technology Alliance Partners (TAP) ture-as-a-service offerings have inThree categories in the TAP program: tensified the byzantine process of 1. Global, 2. Strategic, and 3. Advantage – Five Global partners, 10 Strategic, & 60 Advantage integrating these multiple technology partners’ products, marketing Four categories of channel partners: strategies, and sales efforts. This Today, the lines are blurry ev1. Elite, 2. Premier, 3. Select, and 4. Distributors trickles down to the reseller comerywhere—between technology – 100 Elite partners, 250 Premier, 7,000 Select, & 35 Distributors munity in several ways. For one, partners and, to a greater extent than ever, channel partners, too. VARs have been forced to become For technology allies, there are now more parties involved than more than just product pushers; many are inserting themselves ever in delivering a solution. Furthermore, thanks largely to the into the technology itself well after the sale by becoming the advent of cloud technologies that enable customers to buy ev- Managed Service Provider (MSP) maintaining these solutions ery element of an IT operation as a Web service and pay only for the customer on an ongoing basis. for what they use, there are no longer clear distinctions between servers and storage, end-user computers and devices, network- In the past five years, Brocade has had to develop its reseller operation while simultaneously solving the industry-wide ing components, software applications, and security. riddle of how to develop increasingly arcane solutions with “The dynamics have changed altogether with virtualization and strategic technology partners and align them with increascloud taking a dominant role in enterprise and SMB IT,” said ingly collaborative VARs. Timm Hoyt, CA-AM, head of strategic alliances at networking solutions provider Brocade. For IT vendors like Brocade, the onus is on the company to work Quarter 3, 2013

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For most companies, the question is no longer whether to ally, but how to do it right. The answer starts with the Association of Strategic Alliance professionals.

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Apply state-of-the-art tools, practices, and processes for alliance planning and execution ■ Engage with a community of highly accomplished alliance management professionals who not only share your challenges but also have the blueprints to overcome them ■ Design and build the company’s alliance management function ■ Promote the organization as “partner of choice” within your industry ■ Influence all pertinent stakeholders to contribute to making alliances flourish ■ Network with professionals from a variety of industries to find your next job, partner, or employee ■ Obtain the requisite training in the discipline’s hard and soft skills ■ Illustrate to C-level executives and other stakeholders the value generated by an alliance portfolio and the Alliance Management practice ■ Keep current with the latest high-level collaboration strategies ■

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Become an ASAP Member Today! ASAP offers two membership types, Individual and Corporate. To become an ASAP Individual Member today visit www.strategic-alliances.org/individuals. To become a Corporate Member contact ASAP’s senior manager of membership services, Lori Gold, at +1-781-562-1630 ext. 203, or lgold@strategic-alliances.org.

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with its ecosystem of strategic allies to simplify the solution being handed off to the reseller community as much as possible—a feat that is easier said than done. “Our job as a networking vendor and as a partner at the server/compute layer, app layer, storage layer, etc., is to solve some of that complexity for the customer and then enable the right set of integrators or resellers to deliver that and stop focusing solely on technology but more so on, ‘What is this going to do to the line of business [in which the solution] is being implemented?,’” said Hoyt. Unlike many veteran technology vendors, Brocade is relatively new to selling aggressively through the channel. Until 2008, the company did not rely heavily on VARs to sell its core storage networking products. That year it became an end-to-end network solutions company by acquiring IP/Ethernet networking organization Foundry Networks, and thereby found itself in a new market that necessitated an aggressive channel strategy.

“TAP”-ping Technology Partners to Simplify the VAR and Customers’ World Whether the company is working with VMware and EMC to simplify application deployment, teaming with HP Services and IBM to ensure network reliability, or providing a unified communication platform with Microsoft, there is a common thread running through all of Brocade’s technology alliance endeavors. “Very often, what we find is that our competitor in a situation isn’t always a vendor; very often, it’s the status quo. We along with a number of our technology alliance partners are looking at how we can disrupt the status quo,” said Hoyt. Partners in Brocade’s Technology Alliance Program (TAP) are stratified into three levels—Global, Strategic, and Advantage—which “are dictated by the engagement and the intensity of the integration [with] the alliance partner,” said Hoyt. “The higher up in the stack, the more commitment there is from an executive sponsor.” In fact, the company’s most senior leadership is paying attention to TAP now more than ever, which is a reflection of the increase in the overall importance of partnering to Brocade as a means of filling product gaps. “Our executive staff has a lot more awareness and engagement, and, in turn, expectations from this group,” said Hoyt. This internal stakeholder commitment dictates the sucQuarter 3, 2013

cess of TAP’s alliances to a great degree. With the highest executives demonstrating their commitment to the program, functional leads in product development, sales, marketing, and support are all invested in alliance activities as well. Even with each of the functional heads’ support and dedication, Hoyt said the TAP practice is continually challenged to prove the program’s overall worth and communicate its value proposition in a manner that resonates with each constituent. So for the sales teams, Hoyt said the goal is to provide “the right messaging through the right medium at the right time” to help salespeople close deals, whether that means an overview of the problem and solution or relevant case studies. Product folks are interested in how partner solutions fill gaps, complement existing pieces, or expand relevance. The executive staff needs a combination of these messages because alliances do not always instantly provide the success points of immediate interest to the highest level of executive. “Sometimes these strategic alliances take a while to mature. The early-day metrics are not always ones that shareholders or CEOs of publicly held companies can say, ‘How is this immediately contributing to my EBITDA or my EPS?’” said Hoyt.

Down the Middle of the Alliance River Like the company itself, leaders at Brocade’s partner organizations are increasing their stake in alliances as well. Onboarding division heads at its top allies is one of the essential ingredients to a successful partnership, according to Hoyt. The nebulous boundaries of today’s product architectures often force partners to clarify even the most basic goals of a partnership. “What is the expectation of the alliance? Is this more of a thought leadership/branding alliance? Is this more of a technology integration that has a very definable, addressable market? Is it a revenue stream alliance?” Hoyt explained, using hypothetical examples. When it comes to operationalizing its technology alliances, Hoyt sees governance as a balancing act. On one hand, you do not want to “suffocate a strategic alliance in the early days by putting [in] too much governance— trying to have the perfect business plan in place before launch”; on the other, you do not want to manage an alliance too loosely. “It’s a balance where you need to guide the canoe down Continued on page 52 17


Next Wave

With New Models, Creative Financing, and Enlightened Thinking, Public-Private Partnerships Are Taking Collaboration to the Next Level— and Moving the World Toward a More Sustainable, Healthy Future By John DeWitt and Michael Burke

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Strategic Alliance Magazine


You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

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You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

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Strategic Alliance Magazine


You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

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You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

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Strategic Alliance Magazine


You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

Quarter 3, 2013

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Creating New Markets and New Business Value New Study of Best Practices in Go-to-Market Technology Alliances Reveals What Sets High-Performing Alliances Apart By Norma Watenpaugh, CSAP

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Strategic Alliance Magazine


strategic alliance magazine | special focus | I T

You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

Quarter 3, 2013

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strategic alliance magazine | special focus | IT

You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

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Strategic Alliance Magazine


strategic alliance magazine | special focus | IT

You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

Quarter 3, 2013

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New Englanders—and that includes some of those who produce this magazine—may be forgiven for their Boston-centric labeling of the region’s principal city as The Hub. But come this fall, Beantown will once again be at the center of the action where all things biopharma are concerned as it plays host to the 2013 ASAP BioPharma Conference, to be held at the Hyatt Regency Boston Nov. 20–22. The world’s premier annual event for alliance professionals in the biopharmaceutical industry, the ASAP BioPharma Conference shattered records for attendance last year in Cambridge— up by about 50 percent from the year before—and this year’s gathering of the biopharma tribes promises to be even better. From certification workshops to panel discussions, from interactive presentations to networking events, the conference will be center stage for the leading lights of the industry, including representatives from the major pharma and biotech firms, contract research organizations (CROs), and related companies. The theme of this year’s conference is “Challenge. Change. Connect,” reflecting not only the many unique challenges facing a fastmoving industry, but the need for alliance professionals to inform, educate, and challenge themselves to guide their partnerships smoothly through often turbulent, uncharted waters as they work to innovate and deliver greater value amid a biopharma “ocean” rife with swells, storms, shoals, and even sharks. One of the best ways to do this, of course, is to connect with other hardy navigators who are braving the same dangers and meeting those same challenges and disruptions head-on—and succeeding. At BioPharma 2013, prominent individuals and companies from all corners of the industry will once again share the latest ideas, tools, and programs they’re using every day to drive alliance success. Partnering in this space is certainly evolving—sometimes it’s changing at a shockingly fast pace—and the typical, traditional alliance context is being replaced by a growing ecosystem of partners that includes service providers, academic institutions, foundations, diagnostic companies, and e-health organizations, in addition to the more familiar discovery, development, and commercial alliances that have long been core to the industry. As always, and similar to the college experience, where so much of importance is learned outside the classroom, the 2013 ASAP Quarter 3, 2013

BioPharma Conference will feature quite a lot of learning and information sharing that takes place outside the formal conference sessions: in the hallways during coffee breaks, and at networking events, cocktail hours, and informal chats where you’ll find yourself rubbing shoulders with partners old and new, thought leaders from around the profession— and maybe that prospective partner or service provider you’ll need by your side next year, if not next month. The opportunities to connect with senior leaders and folks from business development, marketing, research, clinical development, and manufacturing who are charged with managing alliances with and for biopharma organizations are simply unparalleled.

Keynote Kickoff The conference’s first day, Wednesday, Nov. 20, will feature the all-important CA-AM and CSAP certification preparation workshops for those looking to up their game by becoming ASAP-certified as alliance professionals. Thursday will mark the official start of the conference with a keynote address by Kenneth A. Getz, chairman of the Center for Information & Study on Clinical Research Participation (CISCRP), a nonprofit organization he founded to educate and raise public and patient awareness of the clinical research enterprise. The working title for Getz’s presentation is “Changing Dynamics in Drug Development Collaborations,” and it will examine the implications the shifting landscape in drug development has for alliances, including evolving relationships among industry, service providers, patient organizations, and academia. In addition to his work with CISCRP, Getz (pictured above) is the director of sponsored research and an associate professor at the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, Tufts University School of Medicine, where he facilitates research programs on drug development management strategies and tactics, 29


outsourcing, and global investigative site and patient recruitment practices, trends, and policies. He is also the founder and owner of CenterWatch, a leading publisher in the clinical trials industry. A well-known speaker at conferences, symposia, universities, investor meetings, and corporations, Getz has been published extensively in peer-review journals, books, and in the trade press. He is the author of two nationally recognized books for patients and their advocates, Informed Consent: A Guide to the Risks and Benefits of Volunteering for Clinical Trials and The Gift of Participation, and the recipient of several awards for innovation and scholarship. He has held a number of board appointments in the private and public sectors including serving on the Institute of Medicine’s Clinical Research Roundtable, the DIA Foundation, the Consortium to Examine Clinical Research Ethics, and the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative. He is on the editorial boards of Pharmaceutical Medicine and the Drug Information Journal and writes a bimonthly column, nominated for a Neal Award in 2010, for the journal Applied Clinical Trials.

Selected Sessions As the BioPharma Conference rolls on over the course of Thursday and Friday, some of the other presentations confirmed at press time include: n A session featuring Michael Berglund, director of alliances at Eli Lilly, drawing on his law enforcement background as a former police sergeant, on how managing hostage situations and alliance work actually have a lot in common—from how to balance being “in the fight” with leading, to doing the work versus providing the team with enough guidance to help them solve problems themselves. n A panel of senior leaders—including Robert Wills, vice president of alliance management at Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson; Matt Johnson, vice president of the AbbVie Transition Office; Andy Hull, vice president of global alliance management at Takeda Pharmaceuticals; and Harm-Jan Borgeld, head of alliance management at Merck Serono—who will examine the topic of alliance arbitration: how to avoid it, but when the going gets tough, what to do if prevention efforts fail. n Presenters from Novartis who will discuss how to build alliance capability across a broad network—and get credit for it—using examples from the company’s Forum for Alliance Management Excellence. 30

n A session on working with service

providers and CROs.

n Case studies featuring two opposite-

number alliance managers presenting lessons learned from the “bumps in the road” their alliance encountered in its journey.

Thursday’s schedule also includes a networking reception in the evening after the day’s sessions have concluded—a great place to link up over cocktails and hors d’oeuvres with old friends as well as prospective partners—and a networking lunch and breaks will be provided during the day on both Thursday and Friday. The conference will end on Friday at 3:15 p.m. with a closing session to be announced.

See You in Boston! Some of the sessions and presentations for this year’s BioPharma Conference are still in the planning stages, but as in the past, there will be a rich variety of content that should prove useful to anyone working on alliances in the biopharmaceutical field. This includes sessions designed both for those new to alliance management as well as for seasoned veterans who are well advanced in the profession. While the conference aims to have wide appeal for alliance professionals throughout the industry, it should prove to be an especially valuable educational and networking opportunity for some of the smaller biotech firms in the Boston area that may not yet have formal alliance management programs. The conference venue, the recently renovated Hyatt Regency Boston, is located in the heart of downtown Boston, a quick cab or train ride to Logan Airport, and within easy walking or public transportation distance to Faneuil Hall, Boston Common, the Freedom Trail, and many other Hub sites and activities. The central Boston location provides easy access and makes it a great way to combine conference participation with visits to some of your biopharma partners in the area. Don’t miss the opportunity to draw on your peers’ vast resources of knowledge and strategies for successful biopharma alliances—as well as the chance to network with the industry’s best and brightest. See you in Boston in November! n For more information on the 2013 ASAP BioPharma Conference and to register, visit www.strategic-alliances.org and click the BioPharma Conference banner ad on the right, or click on the BioPharma Conference listing under Upcoming Events on the left side of the home page. Strategic Alliance Magazine


The Best Alliance Management Training You Will Find – Certified! Certification Workshops Coming to North America and Asia

ASAp North American 2013 certification Workshop Series

ASAp Asia collaborative Business community 2013 Workshop Series

Herndon, Virginia (Washington D.C. metro area) September 24–25: CSAP and CA-AM Workshops San Jose, california October 15–16: CSAP and CA-AM Workshops

Shanghai, china November 13–14: CA-AM Workshop Collaborative Innovation & Value Creation Workshop Singapore November 18–19: CA-AM Workshop Collaborative Innovation & Value Creation Workshop Bangalore, India November 21–22: CA-AM Workshop Collaborative Innovation & Value Creation Workshop

Boston, Massachusetts November 20–22: CSAP and CA-AM Workshops

Melbourne, Australia November 25–26: CA-AM Workshop Collaborative Innovation & Value Creation Workshop Sydney, Australia November 28–29: CA-AM Workshop Collaborative Innovation & Value Creation Workshop

For more information, or to register for one of these workshops, please contact Jennifer Silver at +1-781-562-1630 ext. 205 or jsilver@strategic-alliances.org.

CSAP Quarter 3, 2013

CA-AM 31


ASAP MEMBERSHIP SURVEY 2013: FEEDBACK

You Spoke.We Heard You. As we did last year, we spent the first quarter of 2013 getting your feedback through our member survey to hear how we can further refine ASAP’s value proposition and help you along the way as you advance your alliances and your career path. We are happy to report that in many cases our current benefits are creating the member experience you seek. Moreover, many initiatives are currently in the works to greatly enhance that experience moving forward. I. Community You said you learn a great deal from your fellow members and you want to see our community grow. We are pleased to report that membership has increased across the board in the past year; we now have more Individual, Corporate, and Global Members than ever! Equally important, the new members are coming from an increasingly diverse range of industries, including marketing communications; banking, lending, and credit; and engineering and construction, to name a few. In addition, our membership is expanding in several countries. Thus, ASAP is working to tailor our messaging, services, and experience to their respective cultures. Meanwhile, ASAP Global and its Chapter Presidents’ Council (CPC) are restructuring the association’s chapter model to ensure that we are consistently delivering the standout networking and content ASAP is known for at a regional level. Not every member lives near a chapter, so we are also pursuing a platform for an online community of alliance professionals and simultaneously working social media channels such as LinkedIn and Twitter to enable our members to help each other at any time. “Our membership is our most important asset,” said Jack Pearson, CSAP, acting president and CEO of ASAP. “We are making sure ASAP’s practices are inclusive of all of our members, so that everyone derives great benefit from ASAP’s diverse community and resources.” II. Knowledge and Resources You said that you continue to enjoy Strategic Alliance Magazine, which recently entered its third year. In addition, scores of alliance pros have purchased The 32

So We’re Enhancing Your Membership Experience! ASAP Handbook of Alliance Management: A Practitioner’s Guide, an indispensable resource that puts every alliance management practice, principle, tool, and current professional standard under your thumb, and you have given overwhelmingly positive feedback on this collaboration of more than 30 of the profession’s thought leaders, all of whom are ASAP members who volunteered their time to make this a publication alliance managers can rely on at any juncture in their activities. . Moreover, ASAP’s Knowledge Base & Research Committee is hard at work expanding the number of Best Practice Bulletins, white papers, and other helpful articles you enjoy as an ASAP member. The committee is also identifying research projects that could provide our community with powerful insights, and it will ultimately conduct and manage selected projects. The committee has laid the foundation to bring you more of the helpful, relevant content you crave. III. Professional Development For a little over a year now, many of you have taken advantage of our new certification system, which gives you more ways to earn points than ever. We have also rolled out more ways to get the training you need, whether to prepare for a specific certification exam or to enhance your skills and hone your craft in general. Our Education Provider Partner Program (EPPP) enables you to obtain expert training and consulting services for any level of career development wherever you are in the world. As part of ASAP’s new Certification Workshop series, some of our fully vetted, respected EPPP teachers will be traveling to various

parts of the globe to present in-person educational sessions. In addition, our chief annual events, the 2012 ASAP BioPharma Conference and 2013 ASAP Global Alliance Summit, were once again well attended and highly praised by the professionals who came to develop their skills and network with the best and brightest of our profession. Our Programs Committee will continue to bring more great insights into how to demonstrate the value of alliance management to the C-Suite and other front-burner issues in the coming months. As the business landscape becomes increasingly collaborative, ASAP is also ramping up efforts to educate key external audiences, such as HR, marketing, senior leadership, and other parts of the organization, on the value of certification—particularly how CA-AM- and CSAP-certified pros drive successful alliance initiatives at a higher rate than the norm. As companies rely on partnering as much as on internal development and acquisitions, organizations must understand how critical it is for their alliances to be managed by people who employ the most current practices and methodologies in the increasingly complex alliance management discipline. Lastly, we are working to expand the resources available at the ASAP Career Center beyond its job board, which already contains dozens of job postings from leading organizations. “As our membership continues to grow and diversify, ASAP’s services will expand and evolve to mirror this evolution,” said Kim Fill, CSAP, IT program manager at Ingersoll Rand and a member of ASAP’s Membership Committee. “The doors are always open for our members to make their voices heard. Once again, their feedback has helped us tailor the ASAP experience to meet their needs.”

For questions or comments please contact Lori Gold, Senior Manager of Membership Services at ASAP, at lgold@strategic-alliances. org or +1-781-562-1630 ext. 203. Strategic Alliance Magazine


E D I T O R I A L

S U P P L E M E N T

By David S. Thompson, CA-AM, and Steven E. Twait, CSAP

If you were to ask a group of alliance managers which activities rank among their least favorite, taking minutes at governance meetings is likely to land near the top of the list. While such feelings are understandable given the mundane nature of the task, oďŹƒcially documenting the discussions, decisions, and future action items that result from such gatherings is one of the most important services that alliance management professionals perform in the course of their work. Built on the bedrock of the contract, the minutes are the living, ever-evolving framework within which an alliance develops.

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E D I T O R I A L

S U P P L E M E N T

Given the range and depth of subjects often covered within a governance meeting, the resulting minutes can be used for a variety of purposes and serve as, among other things, a: — Historical reference — Record of important decisions about strategy, tactics, and budget — Source of evidence in a partnership dispute — Auditable corporate governance document As you might imagine, this diversity of possible uses poses a number of potential risks. Because a major aim of alliance management is to decrease business and human risk and to reduce legal uncertainties, providing accurate, well-crafted minutes is an important alliance task. Within each meeting’s minutes, what is said, who says it, how it is said, and which supporting materials are included are all critical elements. Given the importance of meeting minutes, the writing and assembly of these components should be entrusted to a professional skilled in managing and mitigating alliance risk in its various forms—business risk, human risk, and legal uncertainties.

Paint an Accurate Picture Minutes documenting alliance governance meetings either mitigate or exacerbate the potential for each type of alliance risk. One might ask, “How do minutes change the risk profile of an alliance, if all they do is document what happened at the governance meeting?” This is a good question. The fact is that minutes cannot by their very nature exactly capture all of the elements of a meeting. They are, for lack of a better analogy, like a landscape captured by an artist. Any painter necessarily captures not the actual landscape itself, but rather his or her interpretation of that landscape. If Pablo Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci were to have captured the same landscape, for example, the resulting paintings likely would have looked very different. For the purposes of discussion, one could say that da Vinci strove to represent the landscape as precisely as possible, doing his best not to inject emotions or specific style elements. It might be said that Picasso, on the other hand, was more interested in altering the image to evoke a different viewer response. In art, the style of a landscape painting is a matter of taste; in alliance management, however, recording minutes is a matter of exercising sound judgment regarding the business, human, and legal uncertainties that form the 34

landscape of each meeting. The minutes must accurately portray the contents of the meeting and the resulting agreements without injecting additional risk into the process. To complete the analogy, the minutes that an alliance manager produces should more closely resemble a da Vinci than a Picasso, with the goal of accurately depicting events rather than creating a stylized version that is meant to elicit a particular response.

Stick to the Facts to Reduce Human Risk Anything put into writing and sent off for review opens the door for misinterpretation. Who among us has not had the experience of sending or receiving an email whose intended message was misconstrued, often at the expense of the author? It has been said that a written document is like a Rorschach or inkblot test in that the reader often projects his or her feelings onto the document. Such opportunities for misunderstandings represent human risk. The following paragraphs cover several ways human risk can be introduced. First, there is the use of loaded words that evoke in the reader negative feelings toward the author. Loaded language often takes the form of parenthetical comments such as, “After a seven-week delay, Company X provided the necessary resources to start the beta program.” The phrase “After a seven-week delay” may be accurate and even satisfying for the writer to include, but unless it is germane it should be left out, because the reader may infer that the author is taking a gratuitous punch at his or her company. The second common way that human risk is increased in the taking of minutes occurs when minutes are altered to reflect what the author would have liked or wished to have said or done, but did not actually do so in the meeting. This typically happens when someone commits to something beyond his or her authorized level or neglects to mention some relevant piece of information during the governance meeting. These types of behaviors increase human risk by inviting significant interpretation to occur as the reader begins to think about any number of possible motivations behind the “spin doctoring” of the minutes. The third way that human risk is often introduced is with the approval of imprecise, unclear minutes. Sometimes wording in minutes is chosen with the good intention of reducing the risk of offending a partner. The Strategic Alliance Magazine


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tradeoff, however, is that these types of minutes are often unclear on final decisions, deadlines, and action items. This uncertainty translates into increased human risk by confusing the reader and leaving until later the clarification of important details, which can result in unnecessary costs and delays. The good news is that reducing the human risk in this process is relatively easy, if each party can agree on and adhere to a few simple rules: — Build in the review of draft minutes at the end of each agenda section during a governance meeting. Spend the group’s time focused on getting the content right, not the style. Don’t move to the next major agenda item until all parties agree that the minutes capture the essence of the discussion, decision, or action item. Quarter 3, 2013

S U P P L E M E N T

Remember that the time for editing will come later, outside of the governance meeting. — Before making the minutes official, allow a week’s time to review the draft minutes that have been written and revised by the alliance management team. This time period allows the appropriate and necessary networking to occur in each organization. Many teams will actually approve the prior meeting’s minutes at the following governance get-together and record that approval as a decision. — Alternate who is responsible for taking the minutes for

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In partnership, there is strength

Since 1999, Lilly’s Integrated Alliance Management professionals have helped companies maximize the value of partnered assets. With strong roots in governance and relationship management, we excel at problem solving and value-chain integration at all stages of discovery, development, and commercialization.

AnOffice Officeof ofEli Eli Lilly Lilly and Company Company An

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As an organization and as individuals, we are committed to the success of every partnership we manage. By staying true to mutual goals—and by doing everything necessary to achieve them—we help partners realize the value inherent in every strategic alliance.

E-mail stwait@lilly.com for more information.


E D I T O R I A L

S U P P L E M E N T

the governance group. Allowing both parties to take turns helps spread the workload and gives each team insight into the nuances of minute taking. — Agree on a meeting template that will make it easier for all parties to go back and find information, should they need to do so. — Embed copies of all presentation and supporting materials into the minutes so that all relevant meeting documents are available in one place.

Include All Key Elements to Manage Business Risk One primary objective of alliance governance minutes is to capture the decisions surrounding the strategy, tactics, and financial transactions of the alliance, as well as any assigned tasks and relevant deadlines. These outstanding activities should be undertaken and their status reported on at the next governance meeting. The minutes, while brief, should include enough detail that someone new to the alliance could go back and be able to reconstruct what was discussed and what decisions were made within the governance meetings. (Any preread materials or slides used in the meeting should also be included in the final version of the minutes.) In this process, it is helpful to follow a standard format that allows a reader to quickly search for certain types of alliance-specific information. The following sections, for example, are key elements of the business of the alliance: — Budgets — Changes in timelines — Changes in project scope — Contingency plans

Consult Counsel to Manage Legal Uncertainties Legal uncertainties in minutes are often created unintentionally, as the parties in an alliance rush to document the meeting and take shortcuts that can lead to misunderstanding or misinterpretation. Again, the goal of creating minutes is to accurately capture the essence of the meeting, without injecting any personal perspectives or postmeeting spin. Any discussion touching upon the following topics should be drafted and reviewed by someone with solid legal judgment, prior to finalizing the meeting minutes: — Product or patient safety — Market or customer segmentation

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— Government compliance — Pricing

Templates and Process The format of minutes should be convenient for end users to navigate and should include the following basic information: — The meeting date — A copy of or a link to the agenda — Names and company affiliations of meeting attendees — Copies of all presentations used as supporting material — Decisions that were made during the meeting — Action items or follow-up items, with owners assigned, that need to be addressed after the meeting

Conclusion The job of minute taking is one of the most important roles that an alliance manager can play in a meeting. Taking good minutes that accurately reflect a governance meeting’s proceedings is a skill that requires experience and solid judgment. Great care should be taken to avoid injecting additional risk by taking shortcuts that result in inaccurate or vague minutes. Second only to the contract, minutes create a powerful record of what has taken place in an alliance. Remember that taking minutes often provides a great way for alliance managers to participate in meetings. Alliance professionals should view taking minutes as an opportunity to expand their value and influence into the core of the alliance. David S. Thompson, CA-AM, is chief alliance officer at Eli Lilly and Company and is a member of the ASAP board of directors. He can be reached at Thompson_David_S@Lilly.com, +1- 317-277-8003. Steven E. Twait, CSAP, is senior director of alliance management and M&A integration at Eli Lilly and Company. He can be reached at stwait@lilly.com, +1-317-276-5494.

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More Partners, More Players

Three Systems Integrators Break Down the Disruptive Technologies Landscape and What It Means for the Future of IT Alliances By Jon Lavietes

Our high-tech-industry members are like the rest of the world of IT; they want more insights about the continuing impact disruptive technologies such as cloud, social media, mobile, and big data are having on the world they work in, and they want to know how these forces will change the landscape for alliances in the near future.

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When we began exploring our annual IT Special Focus

management at KPMG, Enri Leufkens, director of alli-

section, we thought we needed a new perspective on this

ances at Capgemini, and Chuck McNamara, Microsoft

topic, so we turned to the systems integrator community.

alliance manager at Infosys, answered some top-of-mind

David Erlenborn, CSAP, director of alliance portfolio

questions in separate interviews. Strategic Alliance Magazine


S T R AT E G I C A L L IA N C E M AG A Z I N E | S P E C I A L F O C U S | I T

You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

Quarter 3, 2013

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S T R AT E G I C A L L IA N C E M AG A Z I N E | S P E C I A L F O C U S | I T

You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

Does your alliance team have its own playbook? Grow your capability with custom Alliance Management Guidebooks from The Rhythm of Business Ever wanted to “go to the book”and cite chapter and verse to your alliance team? Now you can. We help you create a customized Guidebook that documents and standardizes how your company manages alliances – keeping all the alliance players on the same page. Learn more about growing your alliance management capability at rhythmofbusiness.com/alliance-management-guidebook.

Bring us your toughest collaboration challenges™ +1 617 965 4777 rhythmofbusiness.com


S T R AT E G I C A L L IA N C E M AG A Z I N E | S P E C I A L F O C U S | I T

You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

Quarter 3, 2013

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strategic alliance magazine | special focus | I T

You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

You might think you’re a perfect fit, but can your partnership deliver healthy outcomes? Go beyond the “free clinic”alliance health check with the VitalSigns™ Assessment performed by The Rhythm of Business Typical alliance health checks focus on “fit.” Our VitalSigns™ Alliance Operations Effectiveness Assessment focuses on outcomes, to deliver a comprehensive view of where your alliance is running smoothly and fulfilling its promise – and where the metrics show gaps in perceptions of operations and results. Learn more about partnering for healthy outcomes at rhythmofbusiness.com/vitalsigns-assessment.

Bring us your toughest collaboration challenges™ +1 617 965 4777 rhythmofbusiness.com


strategic alliance magazine | special focus | I T

You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

Quarter 3, 2013

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Your Career:

The Alliance Manager as Interventionist

When Conflicts Arise, It Is Up to the Alliance Manager to Bring All Parties Together and Guide Them Through to Resolution By Stuart Kliman, CA-AM and Laura Visioni, CA-AM

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Strategic Alliance Magazine


You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

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You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

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Strategic Alliance Magazine


You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

Quarter 3, 2013

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You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

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Strategic Alliance Magazine


R E G U L A R

F E A T U R E

alliance

champion partners Are us Bringing Years of Alliance Experience to a Company That Already “Gets” Partnering, Laura McCluer Looks to Expand ANCILE Solutions’ Alliance Horizons By Michael Burke

MANY COMPANIES BOAST THAT PARTNERING is “in our DNA,” but at ANCILE Solutions, Inc., it just may be true. “ANCILE exists solely because of partnerships. That’s what brought this company into existence,” said Laura McCluer, CSAP, director of partnerships and alliances at ANCILE. And working at a company that truly “gets” alliances and is dependent on them for its existence and growth opens up realms of possibility for a veteran alliance professional like McCluer. “This company is built on partnerships; partnerships got it to where it is,” she said. “Our goal as a standalone company is to grow significantly, and the company made a strategic decision that the way we’re going to do that is through partners. My job is to create incremental new partnerships with large, independent software providers that have a global footprint, as well as systems integrators.” McCluer describes ANCILE—pronounced An-SY-lee, named for the shield of Mars in Greek and Roman mythology—as “a start-up but not really.” ANCILE grew out of the consulting organization RWD Technologies, founded by Robert W. Deutsch as a sole proprietorship. RWD had a close relationship with SAP, and among its areas of expertise provided learning and education programs to help IT project teams deploy SAP’s complex business applications during the 1990s. “RWD had extensive expertise, had consultants around the world, and they saw a market need—to enhance the software application adoption by the end customer—so they started building software that helped improve the efficiency of the education and learning process around how to use SAP’s complex ERP software,” explained McCluer. “The solution evolved to allow the creation of Quarter 3, 2013

content to help SAP customers teach and guide their employees on how to use SAP as it is customized to their unique business environment. So over time a strong partnership developed between SAP and ANCILE as ANCILE was helping SAP achieve more successful implementations and higher rates of customer adoption.” RWD built the software, and SAP would rebrand it and resell it as part of their solution set. Eventually, Deutsch retired, RWD Technologies was carved up, and ANCILE was spun off as a software company. ANCILE continues to maintain and grow a close relationship with SAP, but has since forged relationships with HP, BMC, and other industry players, while McCluer and her team are constantly surveying the field of potential partners as a means of growing the company. “So we’re a three-year-old start-up with 17 million users, 4,000 customers, and strong cash flow,” McCluer said. “We have 50 percent of the Fortune 100 in our customer base, and a lot of it has to do with our beginnings, in partnership with SAP.”

Go Get ’Em As a skilled alliance professional, McCluer brings her expertise to bear on a situation where the company is very familiar with 49


alliances and partnering, but has been primarily focused on one big partner, SAP. Part of McCluer’s job is to develop new partnerships in new markets and other avenues for Ancile’s growth, to see a bigger picture and a broader landscape.

organization’s unique business processes. In addition, enterprise applications are a big investment to an organization—there’s multiple millions of dollars a company will spend on a software app or tech tool because it transforms their business to run more efficiently.”

“Our job is business development, so it’s ‘go out and get ’em’—develop the business opportunity and find those partners—and because of who we’re pursuing, create a strategic relationship with them. Our partnering model is quite unique, and the reason why I joined. My team plays a dual role: finding the partner, and from there building the strategic relationship by utilizing the ASAP best practices—governance process, how you build mutual collaboration for mutual gain. We look at this as a long-term relationship, where we invest for the success of the partner and build a mutually beneficial relationship together.”

The problem, McCluer explained, is that companies often can’t realize those efficiencies and cost savings—and hence ROI—due to the emphasis on initial deployment of the software, rather than ongoing, on-demand education of the users. This has serious consequences, and can lead to what McCluer called a “Grand Canyon of problems.”

McCluer emphasized that Ancile is “a company that clearly gets the value of investing in partnering, from the board and executive team to staff. That’s how we’re going to grow and succeed. We’re all about mutual success, partner enablement, [having] a mutual business model with our partner. We work closely with our partners to understand their business challenges, envision how we can work together to solve the business problem, and then scope out what the business potential can be for them and us. As a company we’re extremely focused on that—it’s how we grew up.”

The Sand in the Oyster “But we’re learning how to be a software company,” she continued. “Because when you have a relationship with SAP, your world revolves around their model. We’re partner oriented—but the framework, mindshare, and thought process inside everybody’s head at Ancile is often still focused on one partner. I’m this anomaly coming in—‘the sand in the oyster’ is the nice way to put it. My team and I are talking to many other partners that we can add value to. It’s changing Ancile’s scope, and, in some cases, partnering in a different way. When we start to bring forward these new opportunities, the first question many Ancile colleagues ask is, ‘How is this like SAP?’ [The answer may be] not at all: it’s a very different model.” McCluer described Ancile’s particular niche in the marketplace as that of a facilitator, a helpful intermediary between software companies and their often complicated business applications and the end customer, the user, who needs to understand how to deploy and use these applications successfully and efficiently. “We have two areas of focus,” she said. “One, we help a software company with user adoption and proficiency of software applications; two, we enable or give them a way to create significant incremental revenue by doing that. The biggest challenge we all face in the software world, especially at the enterprise level, is user adoption. Technology is complex, especially when it’s customized to fit an 50

Six months to a year after deployment of the software, she said, “there’s a lot of frustration. The heat is on the IT department: why isn’t this working? Why are we not achieving the gains we were expecting? Productivity gains are missed because end users aren’t consuming the full functionality of the software, and the customer is not getting value out of the tool as originally promised. The vendor that sold the application begins to hear complaints, and customer satisfaction starts to slide. The customer backs away from buying more products from the vendor, and the software is at risk of becoming ‘shelfware’: a situation where the customer buys your product, doesn’t use it properly, gets frustrated, and and puts it on the shelf. When it comes time to renew and pay the annual software maintenance fee—the lifeblood of a software company—the customer has no interest in paying for something they’re not using or not happy with.”

Information on Demand, Partnering While You Work Ancile helps software companies and their customers avoid these calamities by means of its customized performance support and training software—and its way of partnering to deliver a comprehensive solution. “We specialize in training and learning, we understand how people work and the tools they need to do their jobs efficiently,” said McCluer. “Sitting in a training classroom for multiple days or reading 500 pages of documentation is not effective. People learn on the job. You don’t fully comprehend and remember unless you’re doing it repetitively. Our product, ANCILE uPerform™, provides the appropriate bits of guidance, tailored to the user (for example by job function and native language), at the time the user needs it to help them do their job. This is where the partnerships come in. Because software companies struggle with the interrelated issues of user adoption and customer satisfaction, we can partner with them to address and overcome these issues. We team with them, help them fully exploit our solution to fit their customer needs, help them sell, help them be successful, that’s our partnership. “In the traditional alliance role, we spend a lot of time with the partner understanding their business. There are common pain points across software vendors, but every company is feeling it and dealing Strategic Alliance Magazine


with it in a different way. We focus on the questions of, how can we work with them to help address their challenges and grow their business? How can we help them support their customers even further and create greater value add? Our partners have built highly profitable businesses around our product, creating learning content and selling it, along with our product licenses, as a complete solution. In exploring opportunities with the partner we talk about the whole business process. That’s the key element for an effective alliance and not a vendor relationship. Then it’s not just a sales situation—we implement governance models to address roles and responsibilities, jointly map revenue potential, and build business plans and marketing plans. The seasoned business development folks on my team are compensated based on the partner’s success.”

Getting Two Elephants to Dance McCluer is relatively new to Ancile, having come on board in January. Prior to that, she spent 15 years at CA Technologies in various roles, including vice president of strategic alliances and business development. This was “a very traditional strategic alliances function,” according to McCluer, involving managing and building existing relationships with IT heavyweights such as Microsoft, HP, Sun Microsystems, IBM, and Oracle. She described working with these big players as often “trying to get two elephants to dance gracefully.” Before her time at CA Technologies, McCluer also held product management and marketing roles at Novell, Intermec, and Attachmate. She has a bachelor’s degree in business from Emory University, and earned her MBA from the University of Utah in 1999. All of these experiences taught her a lot about markets and alliances, and she’s putting it all to good use in her current role. There are both similarities and differences between her job at Ancile and her lengthy stint at CA Technologies. “The front end today is different. I’m all about growing the company and creating top-line revenue by pursuing new relationships, getting them off the ground, and making them strategic,” she explained. “When I was at CA, a good portion of my team’s time was spent managing and growing a select set of existing relationships with major industry vendors.” As the industry changed, McCluer noted that she did implement a partner acquisition strategy. “I did go out and pursue new partners as the industry shifted to the cloud. For example, I initiated a dialogue and relationship with Amazon Web Services. They were new and important to the future growth of the company and industry. At Ancile, new partner acquisition is the primary focus of my team. “At CA I was definitely involved in some strategic thought processes and planning because of the nature of the partners my team managed. We worked with industry leaders—they were the market makers. We existed because partners’ products existed in our customers’ IT infrastructure. At Ancile, being involved in the Quarter 3, 2013

“I reached out to Art [former ASAP president and CEO Art Canter] and said we’re joining ASAP, then explained ASAP to my boss, who said, ‘I got it, we’re in, let’s do it.’” strategic activity of the company is a large part of how I spend my day, working closely with the product management and development teams to understand, in the field of partners we’re talking to, where the partners are headed and what that means for Ancile’s product strategy and roadmap. Also, because the company grew through just a few partnerships, we weren’t structured to scale to support many partners. Now, as we bring on multiple partners, we are thinking through what that means from an operations perspective. How does it impact every function in the company? We are building out new processes, procedures, and governance models to ensure that we operate efficiently and can scale appropriately to support our partners. “The first thing I did in the first month, after figuring out where the restrooms and the printers were—I reached out to Art [former ASAP president and CEO Art Canter] and said we’re joining ASAP, then explained ASAP to my boss, who said, ‘I got it, we’re in, let’s do it.’ This year, I’m requiring my team to be CA-AM certified at a minimum. We are utilizing ASAP to help us gain the formal training in alliance management, [to learn] how to leverage best practices to make successful partnering at scale part of our DNA.”

The Role of a Lifetime In many ways McCluer’s current position at Ancile ties together the varied strands of her working background. Her alliance skills in particular—and her ability to think strategically, and use that strategic vision to move her company forward—are steadily taking Ancile to the next level of partnering and growth. “If you look at all the ASAP members and their backgrounds, a lot are like me,” McCluer acknowledged. “They’ve had many roles throughout their careers, they’ve been there and done that. You could say they’re ‘seasoned’ business professionals—lots of gray hair! The ability to understand the operational side of a global business, to bring a new product to market and know what it takes to do that successfully, handling customer support issues, collaborating with sales teams, working with engineering and development—all of that is involved in alliances. The more you bring your vast business experience to bear, while relying on your alliance skills, the better your partner relationship is going to be. This role encompasses everything I’ve done in my career, which is why I find it so rewarding and fun.” n 51


You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

Collaborative Buzz Cont. from page 14

Immunocore and Genentech Target Cancer

Immunocore and Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, entered into a strategic alliance in July to develop novel biological drugs, known as ImmTACs, targeting multiple cancers, according to Pharmaceutical Business Review and company sources. (Genentech’s parent, F. Hoffmann–La Roche, is an ASAP Corporate

According to the deal, Immunocore will earn an initiation fee of between $10 million and $20 million per program, in addition to potentially more than $300 million in development and commercial milestone payments for each target program and significant tiered royalties. n

Member Spotlight Continued from page 17

Premier, Select, and Distributors. Of these, many still operate on what Kritzer called a “low to no touch” model—mainly the Select partners, which are granted traditional monetary incentives for generating Brocade-based sales. The company utilizes a joint engagement model for the Elite and Premier partners, which tend to be selling in newer market segments that see significantly more complex sales leads.

this alliances river where you’re not hitting either side of the shore,” he said.

Enabling Resellers Moving the technology into the channel requires a much closer relationship with top-tier VARs than ever. Raelyn Kritzer, director of global channel marketing at Brocade, said there is “more of a tighter engagement and enablement model” for equipping resellers to sell Brocade solutions that includes more face-to-face sessions and “whiteboarding” exercises. However, as is common in the IT industry today, Brocade collaborates this closely with only a small handful of resellers. Brocade’s Alliance Partner Network (APN) of channel allies is broken into four tiers: Elite, 52

Member.) The collaboration will leverage Immunocore’s ImmTAC technology to kill cancerous cells while avoiding damage to healthy cells by exploiting the power of T-cell receptors.

“With the business models evolving and customers demanding more from their partners, it’s up to the vendors to provide the right education and offerings to help enable that transformation,” said Kritzer. The top two tiers generally consist of partners that have unique skill sets and have made significant inroads into customer segments in specific vertical markets. Strategic Alliance Magazine


“We don’t recruit en masse for our Elite and Premier categories. We’re looking for a more focused set of dedicated and specialized partners. Brocade isn’t overly distributed, which provides scalability in our coverage model and helps partners maintain a competitive advantage,” said Kritzer. These alliances are deep enough that they require a dedicated person for their affairs. Quarterly advisory boards are held with companies in these two partner categories, and partners are invited to send their top executives to meet with Brocade’s leadership team at an annual global event to discuss market trends and data, product roadmaps, and the general feedback from the field. Moreover, they get briefed on technologies prior to launch, and they

get to beta-test solutions. In return, Elite and Premier partners have to commit staff members to complete a certain level of technical trainings and sales certifications. They are also mandated to develop a business plan for the year with their Brocade alliance manager.

Bringing It Home to the End Customer Ultimately, whatever the level of collaboration, resellers are being counted on more than ever by Brocade to bridge the technology and the customer. “They’re that Swiss army knife that is integrating and supporting these best-of-breed solutions,” said Hoyt. “At the end of the day, the resellers and channels are of utmost importance in bringing it all together and having that stickiness for the client.” n

You are reading the Limited Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine, the magazine of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The printed magazine is mailed free to all ASAP members and Sponsors and is also available as a paid subscription. The complete PDF is available to members by logging in to www.strategic-alliances.org For Membership and Sponsor information email membership@strategic-alliances.org or call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 200

Quarter 3, 2013

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the close

The End of the Affair Not Everyone’s Heard the Good News About the Benefits of True Strategic Alliance Management— But We Can Change That By John DeWitt and Michael Burke

EXACTLY 20 YEARS AGO, MANAGEMENT GURU Peter Drucker wrote, “Businesses once grew by one of two ways: grass roots up, or by acquisition. Today businesses grow through alliances—all kinds of dangerous alliances, joint ventures, and customer partnering, which, by the way, very few people understand.” Yes—and by the way, two decades later, it seems there’s still precious little understanding in the business world at large of the benefits of partnering, or how alliances should be managed—or even what actually constitutes a strategic alliance. Recently we attended a roundtable of insurance industry executives where, among many other topics discussed, it was acknowledged that partnering is steadily becoming the norm in the industry. One of these leaders, however, glibly and approvingly characterized most of the alliances created as “affairs,” as opposed to “marriages”: limited, short-term, and purely transactional in nature. No long-term commitment, no need for “relationship managers” or best practices, no warm and fuzzy partner feelings. Just slam bam, thank you ma’am—get the goods, get out, and move on. Certainly there’s a place in business for such tactical alliances—after all, large IT companies oversee programs of thousands of transactional sell-through partnerships. But that’s arguably not the place where most alliance professionals spend their workdays or deploy their best thinking. In many industries that are still relatively new to alliances, however, the distinction between “affairs” and longer-term relationships may not be entirely clear, nor are the benefits and downsides of each—much less the need for professional alliance management. One gets the feeling that senior executives in these industries are simply 1) realizing that they need to form alliances to survive and prosper, and 2) just waking up to how little they understand about how to successfully create, manage, and sustain them—or how they might have a firm place in a coherent business strategy. 54

As in the song from Oklahoma!, “They’ve gone about as fur as they c’n go.” At least, they’ve gone as far as they can on their own. So where do they turn for help with these “dangerous liaisons”? To ASAP, of course. To this magazine, we hope. To The ASAP Handbook of Alliance Management. And most of all, to the ranks of ASAP’s members—especially those who are CA-AM or CSAP certified—whose skills, experiences, and capabilities in the realm of alliance management represent a torch lighting the way for all those just starting out on the partnering journey, showing them that there is help out there for learning an art and science to alliances, and that they don’t have to reinvent the wheel or stumble blindly cursing the darkness when it comes to strategic partnerships. We’re doing our best to get the word out. And you can help, as ASAP’s acting CEO Jack Pearson writes in his column in this issue, by reaching out to folks in those industries new to alliances, and particularly to non–ASAP members, bringing them “into the fold” and showing them some of the best practices, tips, strategies, and ideas that are building and maintaining successful alliances every day. Networking opportunities at chapter events, as well as ASAP’s annual Global Alliance Summit and BioPharma Conference—all open to nonmembers—are another great venue for sharing ideas and making connections. In ways great and small, as alliance professionals will tell you, you won’t get far if you can’t sustain a true business relationship. n Strategic Alliance Magazine


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B P the Bio llianreemi of thee a pa pha ce P nen wo rt rm rofe t Ev rld’s ace ss en ASAP BioPharma Conference utic ion t for al I als i ndu n str y!

November 20 -22, 2013

Hyatt Regency • Boston, Massachusetts, USA Registration Now Open…Save Today. Connect with us before the Early Bird Rate Ends September 20, 2013!

strategic-alliances.org/biopharma +1-781-562-1630 ext. 204

Follow BioPharma at:

Challenge. Change. Connect. This year’s conference theme reflects the need for alliance professionals to challenge themselves to guide their alliances to innovate and create greater value as biopharmaceutical partnering is evolving and changing. ASAP Biopharma Conference participants learn from alliance leaders including AbbVie, Lilly, Novartis, Sanofi, and more.

@asap_Global #2013BioPharma facebook.com/#!/ASAPGlobal Search Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals if you are not yet a member of this LinkedIn group. Become a BioPharma Sponsor Today! To learn about or purchase sponsorship programs, contact Michele Shannon at +1-781-562-1630 ext. 204 mshannon@strategic-alliances.org or contact John DeWitt, Publisher, ASAP Media at +1-978-544-1866, jdewitt@asapmedia.org

• Keynote Speaker: Kenneth A. Getz, director of sponsored research and an associate professor at the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, Tufts University School of Medicine • Session Title: The Changing Dynamics of Drug Development Collaborations. Sessions cover: • Alliance management fundamentals • Alliance management skills for top performers • Creating value, managing risk throughout the life cycle • Alliance management challenges in a changing industry, and more To register and for more information go to www.strategic-alliances.org/biopharma, call +1-781-562-1630 ext. 204, or email Michele Shannon at mshannon@strategic-alliances.org. Platinum Sponsors:

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