Are Strategic Partnerships The Future Of Indian Business?

Strategic partnerships between brands have emerged as a new approach to capture the Indian market. By joining forces, brands from diverse sectors leverage each other's advantages, broaden their reach, and tap into new customer segments. 

Recent partnerships between the tech giants Salesforce and Google Cloud, media conglomerate NBCUniversal and JioCinema, social media platform Roposo, and e-commerce platform Shopify indicate the aim of generating exceptional value for Indian consumers, exhibiting the trend.

In order to provide Indian businesses a comprehensive solution, Salesforce, and Google Cloud came together to leverage their respective skills in customer relationship management (CRM) and cloud computing. Businesses can improve customer interaction, optimise operations, and acquire insightful data to fuel growth by combining Salesforce's market-leading CRM capabilities with Google Cloud's solid infrastructure and AI-driven analytics.

Analysing target audience needs and market trends are crucial to leverage consumer insights and market trends in strategic partnerships. Brands can discover new innovation opportunities and keep up their competitiveness by combining these insights. 

Addressing the potential for exploring avenues of innovation, Karishma Gupta, Partner, Deloitte India commented, “Strategic brand partnerships not only expand the target market but also equip brands to drive greater customer delight and value, unlocking new avenues for innovation.  To accelerate mutually beneficial growth, brands can share customer data to get a better understanding of customers’ needs and preferences, collaborate on R&D to spur innovation, integrate services to enhance each other’s brand value and engagement, transfer technologies to disrupt a competitive market and open up access to new markets.” Gupta further added, “However, we must be cognisant of the potential pitfalls to avoid before entering a brand partnership. To prevent the new product/service, brands must ensure that there’s alignment with the brand vision, guidelines, core values, and legal compliances. The core identity of both brands must be represented while creating content, so the messaging isn’t lost in translation.”

Similarly, media conglomerates, JioCinema and NBCUniversal have teamed up to transform the Indian entertainment industry. JioCinema now has access to NBCUniversal's vast content catalogue, which includes hit films, TV series, and original programming, enabling it to cater to a broad spectrum of viewer preferences in India and maintain a niche in the highly competitive streaming industry.

By combining their respective expertise, this strategic partnership represents how international businesses may successfully navigate the challenges of the Indian market. By merging their resources and expertise, they can address the complexity of the Indian market, bridge cultural barriers, and provide Indian consumers with a compelling entertainment experience.

Krishna Menon, Chief Operating Officer, QYOU Media, shared insights on international businesses entering the Indian market, stating, “Given that India is a very complex market, the majority of global brands have partnered with Indian brands. To get into a complex market, brands have to regulate, get passed through the regulator, and then go to a consumer in an Indianised manner. The entire concept of introducing an international product or service to an Indian can only be done by an Indian partner. And that is where most of the international partners look at successful Indian partners to leverage these partnerships, be it content partnerships or brand partnerships, product services, etc.”

Moreover, to support Indian small companies and entrepreneurs, Shopify, a global e-commerce platform, has teamed up with Roposo, a homegrown social networking platform. This collaboration enables Roposo's community of content creators and influencers to seamlessly integrate with Shopify's e-commerce infrastructure. Businesses in India can enhance their online presence, boost sales, and establish more connections with customers by utilising the engaged user base of Roposo and Shopify's extensible e-commerce solutions.

The partnership effectively manages and mitigates risks to brand reputation or customer loyalty through establishing open communication channels, conducting vigilant due diligence, and setting clear guidelines and requirements. To ensure that the relationship keeps a strong brand reputation and customer loyalty, it is crucial to prioritise transparency, value alignment, and regular monitoring.

On conflicting brand values within a partnership, Piali Dasgupta, Senior Vice President – Marketing, Columbia Pacific Communities said, “The right brand alliance helps emerging brands with three things. They help reach out to a wider and relevant audience at a fraction of a cost of advertising, create higher awareness of a brand and its product lines, and ultimately deliver unsurpassable value to the customer. So, it’s a win-win when done right. However, partnerships are never easy. One can often jeopardise brand reputation, or struggle with conflicting brand values. The trick however lies in identifying the right partners – those that are aligned with your brand’s philosophy, have a similar target audience and therefore have deep consumer insights of a certain segment of audience, and those that will not overshadow you.”

We should expect more strategic alliances with brands across diverse sectors as the Indian market continues to develop. These partnerships are also expected to shape the future of business in India.