Webinar Wednesday: Scaling Through B2B Collaboration
September 9 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Certification and membership open doors to contracts most members are structurally too small to bid alone. The gap is rarely ambition or capability. It is capacity, and the fastest way to manufacture capacity is partnership.
In one hour, Aaron Cruikshank walks through how supplier partnerships actually work: subcontracting, teaming agreements and joint ventures compared on risk, control, client ownership and speed to stand up. How to read an opportunity backwards to identify the exact capacity you are missing, so you recruit to a gap instead of to a friendship. What separates a prime from a sub, and who owns the client relationship next year. And how a buyer can tell an integrated team from an assembled one, usually within the first page.
The session also names something diverse suppliers encounter often and discuss rarely: being recruited onto a bid for the certification rather than the capability, then finding the scope thin once the contract lands. You will leave knowing how to spot it early, what to ask for in writing, and how to decline without burning the relationship.
Come with a live opportunity in mind if you have one. Everything covered is meant to be applied to a real pitch, not filed away.
Our Team
Aaron Cruikshank is a market intelligence and research professional with more than 25 years of experience in dozens of sectors which include private sector, government and nonprofits. After a career in the public service, Aaron began working as a freelancer/researcher in 2003. Including a stint as an Associate Vice President with Ipsos in 2011-2012, Aaron has worked with many large clients including Bosch, Bosa Properties, London Drugs, FortisBC, BC Hydro, the Government of Canada, BC Lottery Corporation, the City of Surrey, Vancity Credit Union, New York Institute of Technology, Nintendo and the Business Development Bank of Canada. Aaron formed CTRS after leaving an Executive Director role in 2014. Aaron’s areas of expertise are market intelligence, competitive intelligence, qualitative market research, market validation, public policy research and strategy, and business strategy in heavily regulated industries.
Aaron holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communication, a Master of Public Policy from Simon Fraser University, an Executive MBA at the University of Fredericton and a Professional Instructors Diploma from Vancouver Community College.
Aaron is located in Maple Ridge, BC on the unceded territory of the Stó:lô, Kwantlen (qʼʷa:n̓ ƛʼən̓ ) and Katzie (q̓ ic̓əy̓) nations.