Does it feel like your company is expected to be everything to everyone?
Many business leaders find themselves pushed and pulled in several different directions at once, almost to the point where their original core competencies seem meaningless and irrelevant to their future plans.
You may also find yourself asking, do consumers even want this?
For the answer to that question, let’s use a simple example that almost anybody can relate to.
Picture a toaster.
It’s pretty simple, right? It has one job, or maybe a couple more if you have settings for bagels or frozen bread. But at the end of a day, a toaster is a toaster, right? It wouldn’t be more valuable to you if you could use it as, say, an immersion blender, too. You might as well just go out and get an immersion blender.
But what about a toaster that keeps a tally of how much bread you’ve eaten and has a one-push order button so you can get a fresh loaf delivered right to your door before you run out?
Now you’re talking about added value.
Imagine, for a second, that you’re the CEO of the toaster company. You can drive value for your customers by adding that type of feature, but you have no idea how to create it. You’d partner with another company to white-label a toaster add-on that monitors bread usage and interfaces with the bread company and its distributors.
That’s just a taste of the opportunities that white-label partnerships provide.
Here are four distinct benefits of these arrangements.
Preserving Product and Service Offerings After Restructuring
It seems like restructuring is the norm for the modern workplace.
In fact, according to a 2012 global survey from McKinsey, 82% of respondents said there’d been a business redesign at their current company. And 70% of them said they were part of a restructuring within the last two years.
That’s a lot of upheaval. And it’s not always 100% successful.
Sometimes, the friction of restructuring means that key staff have to move into roles where they can’t devote as much time to peripheral products and services that the business had previously supported.
When that happens, customers can get upset – and they can leave.
White-label partnerships represent an opportunity to hedge against internal changes by outsourcing certain noncore products to a third-party provider who is contractually obligated to continue providing services.
Adding New Revenue Streams for Greater Security
White-label partnerships can also provide another benefit to companies that want to hedge against uncertainty: revenue diversification.
If a business becomes overly reliant on a single source of revenue, they’re generally less protected against risk. When a company is too dependent on one key source of income, any kind of targeted disruption can prove volatile for them.
White-label products, and subscription Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings in particular, often employ a revenue-sharing agreement between the company that sells the product or subscription to the end user and the company that provides the product or service.
Growing Your Customer Base With New Offerings
Growth is of paramount importance to all companies, even small and medium-size businesses. According to an analysis of government statistics conducted by the Small Business Administration in 2018, approximately half of businesses are still standing after five years of operation, while only around one-third stick around for ten years.
Survival for new businesses is dependent on growth. In addition to retaining customers, in order to grow, businesses need to expand.
To expand, they can widen their customer base in at least two different ways:
- Capture greater market share.
- Expand into new markets.
White-label partnerships can help businesses make strides in both directions.
By adding new white-label products that appeal to their existing customer base, companies can capitalize on their brand reputation to sell value-added services to their current customers.
Businesses can also enter into new markets by first capturing the attention of new users through white-labeled products and then leading these customers toward their central product.
Expanding the Company Value Proposition
This might just be the pinnacle of what white-label partnerships can do for your company.
By joining forces with an outside service provider to offer your customers a product that complements your own core offering, you can effectively expand your value proposition. You’ll become more valuable for clients and customers without drawing on the kinds of resources that are generally required to pull off such a huge feat.
White-label marketplace services that are relevant to your customers will lead them to view you not just as a supplier of your core product or service, but as a trusted business partner who understands their needs.
Learn more about how sharing a white-labeled Company.com Dashboard with your customers can help you increase your appeal to clients while generating additional revenue.
