Emerging markets and the small- and medium-sized business sector are all the rage today. That is where the opportunities are. That is where promising and potentially profitable new customer segments can be found. It is where companies should look for growth.

That is also where there are major potential potholes and landmines that most companies’ existing sales models are ill-equipped to avoid.

As they look for growth in these new places, many companies find their existing selling models – specifically their traditional alliance relationships – are neither broad nor flexible enough. These markets are inherently more risky and require their own products and services, as well as different selling and pricing strategies. And most companies have limited data and insights on them, making it all the more difficult to be successful using their existing approaches.

The solution is for companies to look beyond traditional selling methods and leverage a market’s broader ecosystem: the community of goods and services that meet the needs of a specific set of customers. To do so, companies need to forge new relationships with partners, suppliers, vendors, co-developers and even competitors – relationships that are deeper, more collaborative, highly flexible, adaptable and responsive. We define such a relationship as the joint initiative model, which is the embodiment of a new approach to sales called agile selling. 

Typical alliance relationships are sell with arrangements in which teams from the respective companies work together as opportunities arise to sell a common solution. In contrast, a JI features two or more partners jointly investing to develop differentiated solutions they bring to market together. A JI is most often a new entity with dedicated sales and service teams and integrated operations that pursue aligned business objectives of the two or more participating partners. The most successful JIs eventually evolve into a standalone line of business for the respective parties, which, through highly strategic teaming, can generate multiples of the revenue that the traditional arrangement does. 

Because a JI is, in essence, a small company, it should have a formal organizational structure with explicitly defined roles and duties. Parties investing in these JIs intend to leverage each other’s strengths, such as better access to new sales channels, technology superiority and functional expertise. There are five key elements of the organization structure of this new company, each of which includes representatives from both parent organizations. 

Leadership and Governance

Like any corporation, a JI needs people who are in charge – those who provide strategic direction and are the ultimate decision makers.

Solution Development

Unlike a traditional sell with relationship, which generally goes to market with standard solutions already existing in the respective companies, a JI is based on designing and developing truly differentiated solutions that draw on the strengths, experiences and expertise of each partner. 

Go-to-Market Team and Delivery Workforce

The JI’s dedicated sales team includes professionals from all JI partners who are charged with taking the jointly developed solutions to the market. This group comprises several different roles, with sales directors and field sales people accounting for the bulk of individuals in the group.  

Program Strategy and Solutions Office

A JI, like any business entity, has many moving parts that must be managed on a daily basis. That is why a key function of any JI is the program strategy and solutions office, also known as PSSO, which is responsible for ensuring the organizations collaborate effectively while minimizing the impact on administrative resources and maintaining the run-rate business. 

In addition to these five groups, a JI often includes a number of support resources typically found in companies of all types. These include professionals from disciplines such as marketing quality assurance, legal, finance and recruiting. In most cases, these professionals are not a formal part of the JI structure but, rather, are on loan from the parent organizations and contribute their expertise on an as-needed basis. 

The JI model is a major step away from outdated, rigid go-to-market relationships that are becoming less effective in helping companies expand their reach and market share. JI relationships emphasize a tighter linkage between organizations with a common customer set, compelling new solutions targeted at these customers, and the ability to respond quickly to changes in customers’ needs and market conditions.

But the JI model is only the beginning of such a shift. We expect to see companies in the near future taking JIs to the next level, tying together already-successful JIs into synergistic superstacks comprising the best companies in key markets, all working together to meet the ever-changing needs of customers. The beginnings of such superstacks already can be seen in the high-tech industry. They likely will soon spread to other sectors as more companies determine that going it alone could be a recipe for being left behind.

Robert Wollan is global managing director of Accenture’s Sales & Customer Services practice; Naveen Jain and Michael Heald are managing directors in the practice. The executives are co-authors of the recently published book Selling Through Someone Else: How to Use Agile Sales Networks and Partners to Sell More.