People expect businesses to engage in society now more than ever – and they feel that businesses could be doing more through that engagement. In an increasingly polarised world facing recession, the temptation for many organisations will be to turn inwards, driving even the most strategic leaders to underestimate the importance of partnership in unlocking value. At the 2023 World Economic Forum in Davos, Boster Group Founder and CEO Susan Boster was delighted to be joined by two incredible leaders to talk about the power of partnerships and how to unlock it.
As part of Boster Group’s sixth annual collaboration with The Female Quotient, Ezgi Barcenas (Chief Sustainability Officer, AB InBev), and Yvonne Garcia (Chief of Staff to the CEO, Global Head of Internal Communications and CEO Experience Program, State Street) shared how they are successfully creating value through partnerships and their learnings: that you need the right partner, the right strategy, and the right measurement.
Identify the right partner – or partners
Identifying the right partner(s) is key. Beyond having complementary assets, partners need to be inherently aligned and committed to what they will set out to achieve together.
“It’s really about purpose and how that aligns with what we believe.” – Yvonne Garcia
Many different organisations are trying to address the same need or solve the same problem. Thinking creatively about the implications of that increases the pipeline of potential partners and creates space for relevant allies to contribute unique resources and scale impact. For example, the success of the 100+ Accelerator – AB InBev’s initiative to identify, invest in, and scale transformative solutions to its supply chain sustainability challenges – led other FMCGs facing the same challenges to get involved, significantly increasing the programme’s impact.
In other words, the question is whether a partner would try to accomplish any given shared objective even without your support – would they, not could they. Lack of alignment around vision, purpose and success is one of the primary reasons partnerships fail, so selecting the right partner and explicitly agreeing the objectives and successes throughout the partnership is key.
Co-create and implement the right strategy
In collaboration with your partners, defining outcomes, timelines, and accountability transparently from the outset will help ensure success. To do this, start by leaning into why partnership was the approach in the first place. “People often think ‘When I work alone, I go faster’; but you can also go faster if you work in partnership,” says Ezgi. A partnership strategy should maximise each partner’s complementary assets while articulating a clear purpose and vision for the future.
That shared, future-focused vision is key, especially if one of the ways this partnership will create value is through positive benefits to the environment or communities. Serving or building a shared vision for the future is one of the primary motivators behind such partnerships, as well as trust, so any strategy should explicitly integrate each stakeholder’s shared purpose. Looking to the future also enables creativity and innovative problem-solving, because it allows partners to openly discuss and invest in the resources, technology or other solutions necessary to realise that future.
“At its core, trust is forward-facing.” – Edelman (2023)
If your vision is future-focused, then your partnership can only realise its full value in that future, making long-term commitments necessary. Acting on the same values over time also helps businesses avoid being seen as political, especially when engaging in societal issues. Partners can also reduce that risk by linking their societal engagement with their competitive strategy, meaning that if the partner and the partnership strategy is thoughtful, the partnership will create value.
“Successful partnerships are those you are in for the long term.” – Ezgi Barcenas
If your vision is future-focused, then your partnership can only realise its full value in that future, making long-term commitments necessary. Acting on the same values over time also helps businesses avoid being seen as political, especially when engaging in societal issues. Partners can also reduce that risk by linking their societal engagement with their competitive strategy, meaning that if the partner and the partnership strategy is thoughtful, the partnership will create value.
Measure success (based on science)
The relevance of both financial and non-financial value is important to partnerships. Strategic partnerships generate financial results alongside other KPIs such as customer loyalty, brand love/desire, corporate reputation/trust, resilience, innovation, employee engagement, social and environmental impact. For example, State Street’s objective in commissioning Fearless Girl – the iconic statue of a young girl that went viral when she was publicly unveiled facing down Charging Bull – was to raise awareness of their index fund (‘SHE’) targeting gender-diverse companies and communicate the firm’s activist approach to increasing the number of women on corporate boards. 1,500 companies with no female board members were targeted as part of the campaign when it launched in 2017; today, over 60% have at least one female board member. Fearless Girl joined Boster Group’s panel in The Equality Lounge this year. While the statue’s future remains uncertain – and the road to gender equality remains long – its purpose is backed by the measurable actions State Street has taken.
Basing actions on science is another factor which mitigates the potentially polarising impact of businesses engaging with wider society, making measurement and accountability critical to successful partnerships. That measurement takes patience – meaningful data collection and consequential change do not happen overnight – but it does allow businesses to demonstrate a history of impact 5, 10 or 15 years down the road. Good partners and substantial partnerships have effective short – and long-term measurements in place and leverage quantitative and qualitative data strategically to demonstrate progress and success.
From the Edelman Trust Barometer to the WEF Congress, world leaders explicitly agreed on one thing this year: that powerful partnerships are critical to moving forward in a world on the edge of recession. By working strategically with the right partners to create measurable value, Boster Group and cross-sector leaders at the forefront of impact are advancing our own shared vision of the future.
Catch up on the entire conversation with Susan, Ezgi and Yvonne on The Female Quotient’s YouTube channel.