Importance of Strategic Planning for Technology Alliance Management

Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” This quote is especially applicable to technology alliances and their strategic plans. In other words, having a realistic and updated strategic plan will greatly improve the probability of success for the alliance and, most importantly, for its members.

The value of having a strategic plan is multi-fold:

• The plan is a road map for the organization that can be communicated both internally and externally.
  • Internally, the plan helps to provide confidence to members that a vision for the future of the organization exists
  • Externally, the plan can help attract new members by conveying the alliance’s direction and potential impact on the industry
• A strategic plan also creates a multi-year operational plan and allocates required resources accordingly over those years

This strategic plan accounts for external factors such as market conditions, competitive technologies, industry trends, and technology adoption rates and then considers internal factors like organizational strengths and competencies, available resources, and member assets. All of these factors can vary over time, so considering these changes can help an alliance navigate variations that could disrupt a plan that did not know these factors. It’s best to ensure the alliance employs a person or persons with experience in strategic planning.

Once the plan is completed, the goals for the organization can be established, which can then be used to derive annual objectives to measure progress each year. These objectives should also be utilized as part of the annual planning process by committees who propose activities and tactics to help meet alliance objectives. From those activities and tactics, budget requirements for the committees can then be determined. This methodical and well-thought-out approach to organizational planning highlights one of the main benefits of having a strategic plan and how it can provide continuity in the organizational roadmap from year to year.

A complete strategic plan is not needed every year, but a refresh should be performed every year. At the very least, the planning team should revisit the assumptions that went into the current plan, and they should also examine the different external and internal factors to determine if any have changed significantly. Depending on the amount of change, if any, the plan can be adjusted, or if there has been significant change, then the planning team may want to conduct a complete strategic planning exercise again.

Strategic plans can provide many benefits for an organization, like a technology alliance. It’s an Inventures’ Alliance Management best practice for our clients to create and maintain a strategic plan. The Board of Directors must take responsibility for ensuring that the organization has an up-to-date strategic plan that ensures the longevity of the alliance and delivers benefits to its members.