When you agreed to formulate a joint venture with your JV partner, did you both decide who would have the final word on all important and major decisions? Perhaps you both want to be in complete agreement on all decisions. Or perhaps one of you is more capable of making final choices confidently, soundly, and reasonably. In any case, before you finalize your JV agreement, you should decide how decisions are to be made.
A JV is much like a partnership. But instead of managing all aspects of a business from deciding office location to hiring staff to capitalization, you and your JV partner are in charge of a specific “venture” which incorporates the strengths of both businesses. The venture could be as simple as cross promotion in each others’ retail locations or as complicated as forming a new business entity which will be the origin of the JV deal.
Thus, depending on how complicated your JV is, you will need a way for decisions to be made that will help business process along smoothly and efficiently. Here are some possible decider formations:
Choose One
Do you or your JV partner have extensive managerial experience? It may be possible that one of you is more suited to making final decisions. Extensive years of managerial experience can be beneficial in making sound business choices regarding staffing, marketing, financing, budgeting, inventory control, production, and any other category related to making a business successful.
If you have developed a JV relationship with someone with this kind of extensive decision-making experience, you may want to let all final decisions be deferred to wisdom and experience. This is not to say that you’ll be left out of the decision making process. Your input and opinion should be valued by your JV partner and should always be considered before making decisions.
Make Joint Decisions
If you and your JV partner work well together and have similar managerial backgrounds and experience you may find that you can come to joint decisions on all issues. This means that cooperation abounds between you and your JV partner and you are able to come up with and discuss options. No one person has final authority, but you both may take a stand on a particular issue. Though you may have differing opinions, it is important that both JV partners are able to make a case and present supporting arguments for their reasoning.
Divide Decisions Based on Expertise
If your JV requires a number of decisions, such as accounting, marketing, staffing, etc., you may want to divide the decision making process to the one with the most experience in that category. For instance, all accounting, finance, and capitalization decisions may go to the CPA, while the marketing, promotion, and sales decisions goes to the one who is the outgoing “salesperson.” This may be a good way to capitalize on each of your expertise.
JV decisions may be few or plentiful. But with the right method of decision-making, your JV will have the road paved for a smooth ride.
Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability. To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free Joint Venture Marketing Wealth Report.