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2.5 Be Careful of Partners
TheFunded.com Advice
Posted by paloalto on 2009-01-19
Tags: Operations Partners
I just read the advice posting regarding vendors, which I agree with for the most part.
I offer the same warning for large partners. We spent several months developing specific features for our application in order to launch a major initiative (major for us) with a large national "partner". A year after the target launch date, the partner still has not delivered. We were to be a key part of their new website release, but they have not released their new website. Two of their website vendors have come and gone out of frustration. They are just dysfunctional internally, more than other large corporations I have worked with. They are also a quasi monopoly, making their employees experts at avoiding any changes, because changes = more work for them, while revenue continues to stream in, at least for now.
Most of our development can be used anyway, but there are specific pieces we spent money and time on that apply only to this partner. Ouch.
Now we are looking at other partners (one is a direct competitor), but we will make sure the partner has enough at stake to instill a sense of urgency in getting it launched.
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