Striking up business partnerships is critical – the digital skills crisis proves it – DIGIT.FYI

Ritam Gandhi
,
In the last decade, the UK has experienced an entrepreneurial boom, with new businesses being created in record numbers.
Much of this abundance in start-up growth occurred at the back end of the decade, in particular after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. For the first time, large numbers of capable and aspirational professionals were afforded the time and opportunity to develop and pursue their ideas.
Today, enough time has passed that the seeds of new ventures sewn in the early pandemic have by now sprouted into established enterprises – which means more complicated allocation of resources, and greater engagement with third parties.
This is particularly necessary for small businesses given the digital skills crisis; most ventures will be digitally native, and those which are not will require a suite of digital tools given the nature of the market. Running in parallel, the UK suffers from a longstanding deficit in digital skills – there is ample demand for highly skilled tech workers, but a limited labour market to provide it.
This means the deeper pockets of larger businesses often monopolise digital talent, making it harder for SMEs to establish the digitally enabled teams they need in-house. In turn, the skills crisis is a long-term problem – while there are sincere efforts in place to remedy the shortage through education and subsidised retraining, these are unlikely to bare substantive results immediately.
Accordingly, increasing numbers of businesses are now seeking to strike up tech partnerships with outside agencies – and the importance of digital to new businesses means finding the right fit is critical to maximising growth.
In short, a tech partner helps in the delivery of new products, innovations, and digital transformation, and can provide continuing support with products after delivery, as well as general IT support.
As founder of a digital agency which has undertaken more than a hundred tech partnerships, I have seen things from ‘the other side’ of the arrangement with a diverse array of businesses, all with their own specifications, needs, and working cultures.
In my experience, the benefits of these partnerships are self-evident among the successful collaborations – while many of the potential pitfalls come down to a lack of diligence and careful planning in selecting an appropriate partner
Tech partnerships can be of particular value to small businesses – both structurally and creatively. The Enterprise Research Centre’s State of Small Business Britain 2021 report found that almost one fifth of SMEs in the UK lack basic digital skills, hampering their ability to provide a robust user experience or market effectively.
The report offers evidence to a correlation between tech-literate business operations and revenue. Adopting cloud-based technologies reportedly offers an average 13.5% increase in sales per employee after three years, while integrating CRM tools boosts sales by 18.4%.
For businesses looking to grow lean and establish a healthy market presence against the more bloated big businesses, these are hardly marginal gains – despite this, less than one third of UK businesses have adopted CRM.
There is a clear and intrinsic value for SMEs in striking up partnerships which can open the doors to this kind of growth at lower cost and risk than looking to hire a team in-house.
Due to the squeeze on the market, many small businesses will target inexperienced and junior development staff, which may limit capacity for larger or more ambitious transformation projects – these team members will have to grow alongside the business.
This is without considering the usual hazards of hiring – it is crucial to find the right cultural fit when welcoming a new employee to the team; this can be even more problematic when there are fewer candidates to choose from.
Establishing a relationship with a tech partner provides immediate access to digital talent at low risk, alongside management staff and creative leads who will provide a more experienced hand to help steer projects.
Of course, the issue of cultural fit remains. Whatever the scale, every business has its own culture – not only how the business operates, but how the team communicates and shares ideas. Founders should be alert to the need to find a tech partner who can blend seamlessly with their own operations.
This is not to say any two companies must be aesthetically identical to strike a productive partnership – indeed, organisations from grey-walled offices are often well-matched with more holistic and casual businesses. The key is to identify short and long-term needs, and where a potential tech partner will be best-suited to pick up from the point at which the approaching business lacks capacity to proceed.
Many digital agencies like to bring their own creative to the table – while others will work with a specific brief to develop the ideas of their partnering business. So, finding the right fit is necessary to ensure areas of overlap are a constructive collaboration – the table is getting bigger, so there ought to be plenty of room for everyone at it.
Founders should also consider not only the shape of the partnership, but the shape of the partnering business. This is critical in insulating against disappointment in the long-term.
It is important to ask what the trajectory of a potential partner is, and whether it is aligned with your own. For instance, if a business grows spectacularly after a partnership is formed, they may look to expand rapidly and invest in more digital transformation, and a new suite of tools and products.
The tech partner, on a more modest growth trajectory, may find themselves unable to dedicate enough resources to meet the capacity of this new demand; causing drift and delay as a new and more appropriate partnership is sought out.
A successful tech partnership has a lot to offer both sides of the collaboration – for digital agencies, it is certainly true that working with different shapes and scales of business allows for a truly dynamic working environment, while on the business side there are evident financial and cultural benefits.
In the context of the skills crisis, the trend towards these partnerships is only likely to grow – meaning entrepreneurs should pay careful consideration to what kind of partnership works best for them.
For the pandemic-era ‘bedroom businesses’, these are likely to be the first meaningful engagement with a third party – and so emphasising the importance of fluid collaboration, clear deliverables and scalability is a strong first step in ensuring a tech partnership can offer the best foundation for growth possible.
Our newsletter covers the latest technology and IT news from Scotland and beyond, as well as in-depth features and exclusive interviews with leading figures and rising stars.
To subscribe, click here.
Ritam Gandhi
Director and founder, Studio Graphene
Explore
Subscribe to
Check Out
© 2022 DIGIT
You are subscribing to jobs matching your current search criteria.
Email notifications will be sent to you Subscribe

 

Your personalized RSS Feed is below, copy the address to your RSS reader.
Subscribe

source

Leave a Comment