Dr. Frank Elter, chief scientist at Telenor Research (and an associate professor at NHH – Norwegian School of Economics), discusses how to ensure that value creation is part of your next partnership deal.

“Partnership is essentially all about ‘exploring and exploiting,'” Elter said. “Exploring is the more difficult of the two, as the outcome is something unknown and can be difficult to describe. But today, we’re clearly seeing a shift, as more partnerships are being formed in the “explore” category to innovate and create growth.”

Abdullah Jarwan, CEO of the joint venture CNTXT, knows that digitalizing an entire country is a job that’s too big for a single company to handle.

“Partnerships will be essential to this journey and a key way to succeed in this rapidly advancing environment,” Jarwan said. “Further advancing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not something that can be done overnight, and it’s not something that can be done alone. It will take good partners who are committed over time to continue to bring our Vision 2030 to life.”

When two corporate entities come together, both successful in their own rights, the expectations for the partnership loom large. The truth, according to long-time corporate partnership executive Petter Lee-Johannessen, is that it doesn’t always work out as planned.

“It’s important to acknowledge that not all the partnerships you see announced in the media are successful in the end,” Lee-Johannessen said. “And it’s even more important to understand why. When you combine the challenge of making products and services with the added complexity of doing that with someone else, you come up against all kinds of roadblocks.”

There’s no getting around the global supply chain issues facing the manufacturing industry. It’s time to think locally, argues Eliano Russo, who leads Enel Green Power’s 3Sun Gigafactory, one of the largest photovoltaic production plants in Europe.

“The opportunities for local suppliers are immense, especially as we move toward a more regional and less global supply chain,” Russo said.

Read Russo’s full thoughts on how digitalization adds value to manufacturing, and how the industry will change over the next decade.