Screening of partner relationships in software business : From commencement to continuous assessment

The establishment and development of business-to-business relationships are commonly evaluated from the customers’ perspective. In this paper we look the process mainly from the opposite direction. We define the supplier’s partner selection process as continuous assessment of relationships with customers, rather than merely commencement needed during the early contract negotiation phase. We have investigated Finnish software companies entering into the USA, to analyze the processes and factors related to establishing partner relationships. We will depict relationship screening as consisting of the commencement process and the continuing screening process.