As the world of video evolves, having partnerships is the key to finding solutions for affiliates that meet their goals. This is the view of Emily Call from MVS who has successfully built up an extensive network of partnerships for the company in recent years.
In a conversation with one of those partners, James Farstad from WIN Technology, Emily shares her thoughts on why partnerships matter, as well as what goes into making a partnership successful.
A starting point is to acknowledge that there are many complexities in video, which makes a one size fits all approach impractical. At the same time, it’s difficult to have the capacity or resources to meet every unique request.
Each affiliate has their own goals that they wish to meet so that they can better serve their subscribers. Working with a small team, it becomes possible to customize video solutions through partnerships.
As a company this is hugely beneficial, because it means you don’t have to have all the solutions or expertise in house. You can leverage the expertise and resources of partners to create a solution that meets the customer’s unique goals.
More than technology
Often the view towards partnerships is to merely leverage the technologies that a partner possesses. James suggests that it’s much more than this. Partnerships have to be built on a foundation of trust, and this is only possible when that trust is built on a personal level. In other words, stakeholders engage with a view to understanding what is important to the other and generating mutual benefit.
Because there’s a need to find unique video solutions for customers, it requires building on one another’s strengths, including process and innovation. Collaboratively, it broadens the array of solutions that can be offered, or the way in which they can be customized and delivered.
Creating unique solutions requires broader thinking. Breakthroughs or innovation rarely happen in silo’s because set approaches are often entrenched. But when you get people working together that have different perspectives and areas of expertise, it generates much broader possibilities.
Additionally, as companies struggle to find expertise to fill the skill gaps in house, partnerships provide a way to do this. It makes small teams more powerful because they have extended expertise they can call on when needed.
Customer focus
Another element of successful partnerships is about looking beyond the immediate customer needs. If a company is looking for a video solution, whether it’s regarding rights or delivery, or working with affiliates, ultimately, it’s about that company looking to meet its customer’s needs.
It goes about working to answer the question: what powers a video solution? As well as what makes that video solution have the desired impact. A successful partnership enables an affiliate to deliver a better product or service to their subscribers. It looks beyond the product to what it needs to achieve in terms of the end user experience.
This is possible because the partnerships based on personal relationships and a culture of working collaboratively. The focus is on helping find solutions for affiliates for specific pain points that they might be experiencing. In the process what often emerges are new solutions that didn’t exist before, and this is made possible through effective partnerships.
There is huge value in leaning into the expertise of others. As the saying goes: “You don’t know, what you don’t know…” This only becomes evident when you hear different perspectives. Perspectives that contain the experience from working with broader industries, and capabilities in terms of resources that enable you to offer more to your customers.
There’s a long history of partnerships from the Wright brothers to Bill Gates and Paul Allen that have worked together to innovate and deliver real value to the modern world. A positive approach to partnerships has been a key element to MVS’ success and as the world of technology evolves, the opportunity to create positive partnerships will be the key to success.
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