At Platform81, we love our SME clients to know that if we can't fulfill all their requirements then we'll usually have a partner company that can. Being small means that we have the versatility and contact base to draw on external businesses when we need them, under our management.

Problems can start to arise when you use a number of partner organisations to complete a job. To give you an example, one of our previous clients used to use 4 separate agencies for their marketing requirements, including a branding and design agency, a digital agency and two print companies. This meant that 5 people regularly had to communicate to launch one new idea, product or service.

This was more greatly accentuated by the fact that each of these companies did what the other do to a greater or lesser extent so there was a sense of constant one-upmanship between each of the businesses to win more work at the cost of the other agency.

In a recent article in Marketing Week Magazine Chris Freeland, MD of Tullo Marshall Warren argued that a full service agency can become a "trusted strategic partner of a client rather than just a supplier". His argument was that if you can "add ’cross-discipline’ thinking that focuses on the business challenge rather than the output, then you are creating a competitive advantage that turns your relationship into one of trusted strategic partner rather than supplier"

At Platform81 part of our ethos is to create strong long-term partnerships with our clients. We recognise the importance of these relationships not just by the fact that companies continue to supply us with a constant stream of work, but by their confidence in being able to recommend us to others. As a small business we also recognise our limitations in certain areas so we have selected strategic partners in some areas that we know we can work with and we can trust to do a great job for our clients.

We look forward to becoming strategic partners with more businesses in the future. Alec Middleton. Director. Platform81