Partnership trap is a condition when a party (individual or company) enters into a partnership with another party and has been legally ratified complete with various clauses and agreements but over time feels trapped in a partnership relationship that is not as expected because there are a number of characteristics of partners that do not as promised at the start. The worst part of the partnership trap is when one party cannot get out of the partnership as soon as possible so is forced to deal with this unwanted partner for a certain period of time.
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Imagine that there is company X which is a small-scale console game developer and has successfully launched a number of game applications that are selling well in the market. One day, company Y, which is a big player in the game industry, wanted to have a partnership with company X. The management at company X were super excited that they would work with Y and immediately agreed to start a partnership between the two companies.
Initially the management of X had prepared various ideas that were ready to be poured into an extraordinary game application. But in reality, the management of company Y did not care about X’s ideas and demanded X to help work on Y’s various projects. In the end, having agreed to a partnership agreement, X was forced to obey all of Y’s wishes and felt trapped in an unexpected partnership.
How to avoid the condition of the partnership trap?
1. Ensuring a symbiosis of mutualism
In biology, we know the term symbiosis mutualism where there is an interaction between two parties and both receive positive benefits. An example is the symbiotic mutualism between cows and starlings. Cows have fleas on their bodies and starlings make fleas one of their food. The two hit it off when the cow allows the starling to perch on her back to eat some fleas. As a result, the lice on the cow’s body run out and the starlings’ stomachs are full.
A good partnership relationship should also be like that. An example is when a food manufacturer works with an online motorcycle taxi company. Food manufacturers can serve their consumers who want to send food to certain locations. Meanwhile, online motorcycle taxi companies can receive income by setting fees in exchange for sending products to consumers’ addresses.
2. In line with each other’s vision
Every company generally has a vision to achieve. Not infrequently they try to establish partnerships with other parties to achieve the vision created. To prevent a company from falling into the partnership trap, the best way is to find out the vision and mission of potential partners. Be sure to only formalize a partnership with a party if it is confirmed that they share a shared vision.
3. Appropriate work culture
Work culture is one of the important things in the partner selection process. It is not uncommon for us to encounter differences in work culture between one company and another. For example company A prioritizes process while company B tends to prioritize results and underestimate process. So, company A and B can be said to be unsuitable for a partnership because if they are forced, it has the potential to create a partnership trap
4. Do small-scale partnerships as an introduction
Tips that are worth applying when you want to formalize a partnership with another party are to do a small-scale partnership first. If it is felt that both parties benefit, then proceed to a larger stage through the inauguration of the partnership. Such conditions are often called pilot projects.
As we all know that the meaning of partnership is a relationship of cooperation between two or more companies to get mutual benefits. Well, this partnership trap is a cooperative relationship between companies, but there is an act of fraud between one of the partnership parties for their own benefit without thinking about cooperation and usually harms the partnership. It can be said simply that the partnership trap is a term that refers to companies that commit fraud to enrich themselves at the expense of other companies for their own interests when cooperation between parties has been established. Because of this, in establishing a cooperative relationship, we should be able to get to know our partners in business in advance to avoid the potential for this partnership trap to occur.
The partnership trap is usually a novice businessman who is usually based on mutual trust, even though in business there is no mutual trust term because everything involves a sensitive matter, namely money. Because, when people are already with money, they often forget themselves and easily manipulate circumstances. Beginning businessmen usually trust each other without paying close attention to black and white agreements. Yup, black and white agreements play an important role in partnerships. So, often in this partnership trap, the agreement has unclear details and tends to have multiple interpretations, so that it can trick novice businessmen into collaborating with other companies.
So far, the existing tax law is still in the United States because with the very rapid level of business mobility, many possibilities can occur. An example of a case from the Partnership Trap, someone who is collaborating in a business field with an asset percentage divided into 5 parts of ABCDE 20% each then A and B sell their entire assets to C, meaning that only CDE remains with a percentage C owning 60% of assets, because it is close to when it’s time to pay taxes, person C sells his assets to person D 50% automatically the percentage this time is C 10%, D 70%, E 20% with profit from interest C has received a large profit share but when it’s time to pay taxes the one who is insured is D , because in terms of the amount of assets held, the tax will also be greater.
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Fines for late payments due to cases like this are up to $ 195, a large amount of funds must be paid if the explanation and evidence are indeed strong, there is a possibility that a civil case can be filed for any reason if you have violated the law established in American law, of course there must be sanctions. in the form of fines and return of assets used as evidence and the last is the termination or closing of the cooperation.
