Accelerating Business Growth Through Corporate Partnerships

Corporate partnerships can go a long way when it comes to providing expanded value for your organization’s employees and clients. Read on for CEO David Fields' insights from Navitus' new partnership with Costco Wholesale.

When it comes to corporate partnerships, combining the resources and expertise of two groups is an unprecedented opportunity to drive growth within a company and provide added value to your customers. But with any partnership, business goals and cultural alignment must be present between two potential partners for the relationship to be successful.

Earlier this year, Navitus announced a tremendous partnership with Costco Wholesale Corporation. Like us, Costco is deeply committed to transparency, superior customer service and has a strong brand reputation for providing the highest-quality products and services at the lowest cost. Now, a few months into the partnership, Navitus has generated key learnings and is on the path to developing new capabilities and services for our customers. These advancements are made possible by our shared values and mission with Costco.

After evaluating more than 20 organizations before establishing our partnership with Costco, I’ve learned that successful corporate partnerships require careful consideration. Here are my top two takeaways for finding the right corporate partner:

#1 Get to know the ins and outs of each other’s businesses

Costco has been a client of Navitus for the past seven years, so the company’s leadership has experienced our customer service and value-add first-hand. This client relationship was the start of what would become a great partnership, where Costco began to understand Navitus’ mission, culture and how we do business.

By working with our transparent, pass-through pharmacy benefit management model, Costco saw the benefit of how we operate and realized they wanted to help us continue to reach more customers and expand access to affordable drug coverage. The Navitus team got to know the forward-thinking leaders at Costco and learned that their customer service, culture and transparency was closely aligned with our mission to lowering drug costs and improving health. Servicing Costco as a client was an opportunity for each organization to really get to know each other and understand our businesses, well before a future partnership was in the works.

#2 Look for opportunities to accelerate, not limit the partnership’s potential

Navitus wanted to find a partner who could help expand our reach and create additional capabilities to meet changing health care needs. We also wanted to use the partnership as a way to benefit our employees through new growth opportunities, so we looked for organizations who could provide unique skills and attributes to expand on our own services. We asked ourselves what areas we could seek improvement in, and how a partner could complement our current offerings. It was also important for us to maintain our business model of transparency to drive lowest net-costs, and we quickly understood Costco wanted to advance our vision and strategy. It’s critical to look for a partner who truly finds value in your mission and can provide ideas and resources to accelerate your business goals.

A powerful partnership must start with similar interests and a common mission between two organizations. Getting to know your potential partners may take considerable time, but it should be top priority to ensure business and cultural alignment. What does a successful corporate partnership look like at your organization?