Many persons view partnership with a big organization as the best way to grow into a big business. Well, working together with a bigger business is automatically going to help you become big yourself. However, you must be aware of the flip side as well.
Would you allow a third person to make use of your business volumes and size for his or her advantage? Do you allow any third party to walk in to your house and use a room simply because you have many to spare? Obviously not.
For starters, the house belongs to you and you are under no obligation to allow anybody else. Secondly, you would probably require your pound of flesh before you allow anybody else to take advantage of your assets. Keep this in mind when you are dealing with a bigger business as a part of your expansion plan. Do not believe that you can take them for a ride and enjoy benefits without incurring any costs.
If the bigger business expects you to act as their external department, then you might better of joining the bigger firm as an employee. What is the fun in running your own business and ending up behaving like a subordinate to a bigger business? It is one thing to rely on a single business for bulk of your orders.
There are many small businesses in the automotive industry that rely on one of the big three companies for bulk of their orders. However, the buyer is not interested in running the small business. Rather, the buyer is very happy that this task is taken off their hands.
Hence, make it a point to analyze the pros and cons of every decision to work with a bigger business as a joint venture or partnership. If you do not have anything to add, you will lose out in the long run.