The Partnership Economy

CHAPTER 16Next Steps: Envision and Plan a Durable Partnerships Program

Priest Willis, Sr., senior manager, global partnerships strategist at Lenovo, is developing the technology company's global partnerships strategy for the coming year. It's a big job—the $20 billion company has a robust global growth strategy and partnerships operations in more than 35 countries.

“I've heard it said that strategy is the clouds and how that strategy gets translated into day-to-day operations is the dirt,” Willis explains. “My job is to be able to take us from the clouds to the dirt.” Drawing from the company's ecommerce strategy for the next year, which identifies Lenovo's revenue goals and areas of focus (i.e., customers, products, and regions of the world), Willis and his global partnerships team begin to chart their course.

“I have a strong team that I rely on that really knows their local businesses,” Willis explains. Great talent is vital to his partnerships team's success. Willis believes that, at their core, partnerships are a people business; you can't do business in distant markets from faraway headquarters. The daily blocking and tackling takes place with local partners on the ground. A strong distributed partnerships team is also essential because although 90 percent of the company's overall partnerships strategy for the coming year will be similar across the globe, how that strategy plays out locally will differ significantly. Customers are different. Product preferences are different. ...