Practices

Alliances & Partnerships

Alliances comprise many forms of partnerships, from marketing and Research & Development agreements in the upper portions of the value chain of a company all the way to Value Added Resellers at the end. They may relate to tangible aspects of the supply chain or collaborative innovation efforts. Sinapses™ helps clients in determining which type of partnership is better suited for them and their goals. It develops a joint strategic plan and pursue its execution.

For example, product management and development is the core of software companies and from where higher margins can be derived. Yet, there comes a moment when clients demand services, such as, installation, training, and support. At this point, many companies form an ad-hoc services team, that becomes a cost center, drains vital and limited resources, and erodes profitability. Other companies pursue partnerships without a structured approach, leading to a multitude of uncommitted vendors that may damage the firm’s reputation. However, when properly planned and executed, such partnerships can exponentially benefit all parties and Sinapses can help you.

Professional Services Improvement

The management of Professional Services organizations relies on a structured framework of processes, people, tools and templates to deliver superior customer services. When properly deployed, delivery practices, PMO’s and other support groups add value to clients and become a revenue source instead of a cost center only. Execution is the core competency for service companies, but it can have a substantial impact on non-services companies as well.

In our example above, enterprise software companies normally build their own services group, given the complexity of their offers. Yet, what starts as a cost center soon becomes a profit and loss (P&L) center and, for all purposes, an entire and completely different business model (services) within the original one (products) and thus with the same needs for professional execution like service companies.

Sinapses™ helps clients designing and implementing professional service organizations, using best practices in processes and tools, ranging from PMO design and implementation to process reengineering and deployment of professional services automation (PSA) tools.