The power of partnership

24 August 2020

Andrew Crisp, co-founder of CarringtonCrisp, celebrates 15 years of our partnership with EFMD and highlights the importance of collaboration for tomorrow’s world.

CarringtonCrisp has been built on partnership and collaboration, and next year we celebrate 15 years of our longest partnership. Two years after we started with one UK-based market research study, we began working with EFMD, subsequently adding four more annual market research studies for international audiences and a range of ad hoc studies and projects over the years.

With market research being a key part of our broader offer, inevitably numbers become important, so I thought a little about what those 15 years of partnership means in numbers. In total, we have published more than 60 reports (running to almost half a million words) with EFMD. Those 60 reports have involved working with over 150 business schools in 35 countries. There have been several thousand pages of PowerPoint slides and hundreds of presentations, hundreds of tweets and LinkedIn posts, many conference and seminar speeches and numerous press articles from the Financial Times to The Economist, The Australian to the Globe and Mail.

The reports provide actionable insights for EFMD members, helping them advance their schools, whether that’s recruiting more students, creating new degrees, developing executive education, enhancing alumni engagement, building stronger brands or creating stronger, more effective websites and marketing, and much more. The partnership adds value to the EFMD school membership experience and in return, provides CarringtonCrisp with a platform to reach EFMD members around the world, opening doors that might otherwise prove hard to budge.

Of course, any partnership that lasts has to be about more than numbers. It’s about many people working together, sharing values and working towards common goals.

Prof. Eric Cornuel, EFMD Global's President, commented on the anniversary: "Over the last 15 years, CarringtonCrisp reports and projects have provided schools in the EFMD network with priceless benchmarking and insights into the rapidly evolving management education landscape. This milestone in our collaboration does not only prove the robust research record but also reminds us about the value of trusted partnerships that deliver value for our members consistently."

Of course, EFMD is not the only partnership, but it is the longest and most enduring that CarringtonCrisp has built since the company started. Our initial relationship with the Chartered Association of Business Schools in the UK was key to the start of the company, and subsequent connections with the Business Schools Association of Canada and the Association of Asia-Pacific Business Schools among others have brought important contributions in building the reputation of CarringtonCrisp globally and supporting the members of these groups.

At the start of September, EFMD and CarringtonCrisp will publish their latest research, titled See the Future. At a time when the future is uncertain, the importance of strong and enduring partnerships, of sharing a vision and working together to deliver that vision, is more important than ever.

Photo by Patrick Case from Pexels