Between the floundering U.S. economy and the collective miss in projecting adoption rate and rollouts, it’s been interesting to watch the reactions of key players in the digital signage arena.
In the last 12 months, we’ve seen shifts in associations, tradeshows, ad model software and hardware companies taking a greater interest in the media, and now we’re starting to see a major shift in partnering. My guess is that those who partner in the true sense of the word will be the ones that win.
In the past, if a network opportunity was on the table, most solution companies would claim to be full service or provide turnkey solutions and would be willing to do or say just about anything to close the business because they rationalized that, “We’re smart people and we’ll just figure it out.” Based on the client’s need, solution development was almost always reactive. What we’re starting to see today, however, is proactive solution creation. Many companies are seeking out strategic alliances with complementary skills, talents, services and even company culture to create proactive solutions to not only meet the needs of customers, but also to actually drive the demand. Yet there are still some companies trying to be the jack of all and master of none.
There must have been a 2010 digital signage strategic planning guide published that placed “true partnering” at the top of the objectives list, suggesting readers ensure their survival by identifying and securing true partners. A number of winning partnerships that have hit the radar are establishing solution suites and providing best-in-class bundles, programs and options.
True partnerships can work to deliver the desired full-service solutions. True partners work together and fully understand their specific mission-critical role within the solution equation and continually strive to deliver vertical and/or customer-specific solutions sets.
In building any type of partnership, remember you’re doing it to better serve your customer. Customers are attracted to well thought-out solutions built on strong, repeatable modeling. They seek trustworthy teams that put relationship, results, scalability and integration high on the deliverables list. We’re no longer building old school digital posters; we’ve evolved and are capable of delivering intelligent communication solutions via rich media. That said, most likely you’ll still need some type of alliance relationships or partners. What does your partnering strategy look like?
