Resource Guide
Methods that Work for Creating Corporate Clients, page 16
Form Strategic Alliances The formation of strategic alliances is also a trend emerging in response to “bundling.” Bundling is the practice of combining several individual projects or potential contracts into a single large contract in order to reduce costs and improve administration efficiency. Strategic alliances are partnerships between two or more firms with complementary products or services. The alliance allows the partners to bid on larger, bundled contracts. Partners might also be able to bid on contracts more competitively as an alliance than if they each did so on their own.
An example of a strategic alliance might include a design firm, a writer and a printer combining skills and resources to bid on a marketing piece. Corporate purchasing representatives encourage women business owners to create strategic alliances in order to boost their competitive advantage.
The third strategy encourages women’s business enterprises to align with 1st-tier, or prime, contractors as a way of participating in the corporate marketplace. Subcontracting opportunities are increasing for women’s business enterprises, with more than a quarter of their revenues, on average, based on these arrangements. In fact, women’s business enterprises that receive more than three-quarters of their revenues from large corporations cite the relationships they have with 1st-tier suppliers as essential to this success. This speaks directly to the payoff of subcontracting.
Subcontracting also offers several other less tangible benefits. First, it opens the door to corporations through the prime contractor. For the women’s business enterprise, subcontracting not only creates revenue, it also has the potential to grant exposure to the corporate market.
There is also another factor that women business owners should be aware of: the increased exposure that corporations provide to their firms. Many of the corporations surveyed initiate a direct connection between 1st-tier suppliers and women’s business enterprises, and others provide lists of women’s business enterprises to their primary contractors. This suggests that establishing familiarity with corporate representatives and appearing on third party certification lists may result in corporations providing your name to their primary contractors, which enhances your exposure to 1st-tier clients for continued business.
Citation
Center for Women’s Business Research. “Methods that Work for Creating Corporate Clients, page 16.” Washington, DC.