Business collaborations entail a merging of and collaboration between disparate teams from the partners, a process that demands a high level of confidence in personnel.

To discover the exact characteristics that make great business partnerships succeed, we surveyed business owners and partnership professionals around how they source partners and the qualities they require for collaboration. Their responses tended to fall into the four major categories below:

Trust

Given the complex nature of partnerships, trust is an integral factor in the initiation and continuation of all great business partnerships. Imagine how difficult it would be to trust a company with a track record of shipping faulty products or a history of bribing partners’ employees to take up positions at their firms. If one partner is dubious of the other throughout a project, how much will the partners be able to accomplish? Not much.

Compatibility when creating great business partnerships

Many business characteristics need to mesh to create true compatibility and maximize the benefits of a partnership, including:
Audience
Offerings
Geographic locations
Company cultures

Shared Vision and Clear Objectives

Common goals are important in partnerships, but at the end of the day each partner’s main objective is to improve their own business. More than shared goals, a shared vision and clearly communicated objectives are necessary to make great business partnerships succeed.

Transparency

Transparency is the icing on the cake when aiming to develop great business partnerships. A shared vision and clear objectives need to be carefully discussed and shaped, a process that relies on the honesty and openness of all partners involved. When businesses are upfront about their agendas from the beginning, they are also likely to communicate when issues arise down the line and thereby provide an avenue for solutions.