How to evaluate a business or partnership? The 4Cs.

Part of what we do at Humbition Consulting is to meet and connect with like-minded individuals - business owners, potential clients & employees, and connectors. It's extremely important for every business to have positivity and authenticity around. You want to work, partner, and build long term relationship with businesses that have morals, ethics, and social awareness. Here are my 4Cs when evaluating a business or partnership to work with - Clarity, Character, Customer, Capability.

The first "C" is Clarity - How bold is the Vision? Apple's Vision is about innovation, simplicity, impact and being excellence. It's very broad but crystal clear on what they set out to do. And most importantly, it's durable for a long time. For Microsoft, the Mission is "...to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more". I often encourage people to read the Mission when they had a bad day at work (tough co-worker or customer fire drill) so they can re-gain perspective on the impact they're making. Lastly, differentiation, is it test proof and convincing? While humble in the process. You don't want to work with copy cats who promised the impossible.

Next is Character. You want to hire the best leadership team, not the most talented. A team that collaborates (will pass the ball around like the Golden State Warriors), respects each other, and has high EQ. One test is where does the CEO sit in a conference room with a rectangular table. Is he/she in the commanding position, top of the table? Center where he/she sees you coming into the room (greeter, people leader). Or in the corner by the trash bins (trust but verify). This is trivial but often sets the tone for the company, from top down. 

Customer - Who do they serve? B2C, B2B, B2B2C, B2B2B? Industry, size, revenue, geo, and growth profile (leaders, laggards, startup, etc.). Do you see complementary business strategy and plan? Can you partner to go after the same industry and market? Can you divide and conquer with respective expertise (Management Consulting + Tech)? What's the customers saying about your potential business partner? You can find a lot of information online - Yelp, Glassdoor, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Why not call up couple of their customers to hear the feedback directly yourself. Remember, no customer (paying, durable, loyal, fan), no business/profit.

Lastly, Capability. Are the Offerings/Solutions/Accelerators clear to you? Trust me, you will always hear companies say they have 20 great solutions for you. All lies! Most of the time (with an exception of couple companies out there), it's down to 1-3. Examples: Google - Search (Ad), Microsoft - Platform & Apps, Amazon - AWS & eCommerce, Apple – iProducts and Netflix - streaming content. Nowadays, technology is part of the finished product. Make sure the company has solid partnerships across different platforms and SIs since the new world is made up of a mosaic of micro-services, connectors, integrations, etc. Definitely do a high level competition research to see where the company sits amongst their competitors. It's often best to work with top 1-2 in the category (Ex: Azure, AWS) or fast growing companies who have significant competitive advantage over others (IP, network effect, partnership, disruptive technology, hired industry leader(s), cornered a market, great customer centric experience, etc.)

Yes, I missed one more C - Capital. It's definitely important to know the company's investment strategy (R&D), top of line, bottom of line, margin, profitability, etc. We will save this for a different time.

We hope you like this quick read and can apply the 4Cs for your future business and partnership evaluation situations. If you see other Cs missing, feel free to comment. 

Thanks and have a great day. #humbitionconsulting #truepartnership #grit