Disruption. We hear this word almost on a daily basis these days. We’re always hearing about ‘the disruptors’; the Ubers, the Airbnbs, the Netflixs of the world, who are revolutionizing the market at every turn. Although we reap the positive changes these types of companies have brought to the market, we don’t often look at the ‘how’ behind their success.
One of those ‘hows’ is digital partnerships. So how do you partner with other organizations in the age of the disruptive partnership – and more importantly – how do you measure it?
To start with, you can simply look around for inspiration. Every day we’re seeing more and more interesting and unique partnerships forming. One of my favorites is the recent partnership between Uber and Manchester United. In the offline space, you can now jump in an Uber ride from a dedicated drop off zone at Old Trafford. Then in the online space, you can get access to exclusive content about the Club, all thanks to Uber. If you’re one of Manchester United’s 659 million fans, why would you grab a taxi and miss out on this exciting content from your favourite club?
This also gives Uber a strong opportunity to measure their efforts with Manchester United. They can look at real-time data around how many new users signed up with the MUFC coupon code, how many people got picked up and dropped off at the new Old Trafford Uber zone, and the volume of users who accessed their exclusive content, all as ways of measuring the effectiveness of the partnership.
Another interesting Australian example comes from leading airline Qantas. Their recent partnership announcement with Airbnb caused quite a stir amongst the hotel industry. Qantas CEO Alan Joyce stated that “the way that people around the world plan, book and travel is changing rapidly with the digital revolution” and he was absolutely right. These kind of world-first partnerships only improved Qantas’ reputation amongst its customers and allowed them to be associated with one of today’s key market ‘disruptors’.
This kind of partnership gives Qantas some very detailed real-time insights into their customer’s travel habits. Qantas can measure the success of their partnership with Airbnb through a number of data points including how many Qantas customers have booked with Airbnb, what the booking value was, the location visited and the duration of the stay and right down through to booked vs consumed dates. These types of insights can also help Qantas in their own operations in terms of numbers of flights to specific locations etc.
These types of disruptive partnerships are becoming more and more common, and those organizations who fail to embrace them will surely fall behind. It’s certainly an exciting time to watch the power of partnerships and the benefits that arise for both customers and organizations.
It’s clear that disruptive businesses are taking advantage of disruptive technologies themselves to build business even faster. This once again showcases the impact these technologies can have on helping businesses to measure business impact across all types of partnerships in real-time.
If you’d like to know more about the power of partnerships and how disruptive partnerships can help your organization drive a 14:1 ROI, why not reach out to the Performance Horizon team.
