There is a number that should give every scaleup BD leader pause: 73%.
That is the share of B2B buyers who actively avoid suppliers sending irrelevant outreach, according to 6sense’s Buyer Experience research. At the same time, warm introductions are estimated to be five to ten times more effective at generating meaningful conversations than cold contact. The conclusion is clear: scaleup BD teams should stop relying on a linear pipeline playbook and start building alliance networks.
After more than a decade as a global strategist and US business development professional engaged by business leaders scaling internationally (particularly into the US market), I’ve watched this pattern play out across geographies, sectors, and growth stages. The scaleups that break through in new markets are almost never the ones with the biggest outbound motion. They are the ones that came with an ecosystem already forming around them.
This article argues for a fundamental shift: from managing a pipeline to building an alliance network and explains how to do it in practice, including the role of in-person, trust-first events in accelerating that network in markets in which relationships are the real currency.
The Pipeline Is Not Broken. It Is Just the Wrong Model.
The pipeline model treats growth as a funnel: leads enter at the top, work their way down through qualification and nurturing, and emerge as closed revenue at the bottom. It is logical, measurable, and deeply familiar. It is also fundamentally solo: each deal won or lost independently, relationships built and then often abandoned once the transaction is complete.
The ecosystem model treats growth differently. Partners, alliances, and networks become distribution infrastructure. A deal with a strategic partner that closes provides access to their entire client base. A referral from a trusted colleague arrives pre-validated. Value compounds rather than resets with each transaction.
“Business development is not only about landing customers one by one; it’s about building an ecosystem of alliances that can turbocharge expansion for all parties involved.” Refonte Learning, Business Development in 2026
A KPMG survey of 258 senior US leaders found that 83% plan to expand their partner ecosystems, and 94% believe those ecosystems will serve as a primary enabler of future growth, competitive advantage, and business resilience. 75% already view ecosystem partnerships as central to fuelling innovation and managing industry change. That momentum is exactly why scaleups cannot afford to rely on pipeline alone.
Why Scaleups in Particular Cannot Afford to Wait
For a scaleup entering a new geography, the pipeline approach brings major structural disadvantages. You are unknown. Your reference customers are elsewhere. Your sales team is thin. The market you are entering has its own established networks, preferences, and trusted suppliers. Cold outreach into that environment is expensive, slow, and frequently demoralising.
“Cold outreach can create activity. Partnerships create momentum. Outbound asks for attention. Partnerships arrive with credibility. One is powered by volume. The other is powered by trust.” Partner.io, Partnerships vs Cold Outreach: What Really Scales in B2B
This matters especially in the US market. American enterprise buyers are inundated with vendor outreach – it’s what I call “the revolving door syndrome”.
In addition, senior decision-makers are gated beyond layers of procurement, legal, and security review. But those same buyers remain remarkably accessible through their professional networks. A warm introduction from a trusted peer cuts through barriers that months of cold outreach cannot.
What an Ecosystem Actually Looks Like
An effective alliance network for a scaleup has structure, intentionality, and clear value flows between participants. I find it useful to think of a scaleup’s ecosystem in four layers:
1. Strategic Alliances
Deliberate, often exclusive or preferred partnerships with companies whose offerings are complementary and whose client bases overlap with your target market. These relationships require the most investment and governance, but they generate the highest-quality pipeline. 2026 is seeing a strong shift toward multiparty alliances, in which two or more companies collaborate on shared client problems rather than simply exchanging referrals.
2. Channel and Distribution Partners
Organisations that can take your product or service to market through their existing relationships: resellers, implementation partners, managed service providers, and consultants who advise buyers in your category. A single well-structured channel partnership can provide immediate access to customer relationships that would otherwise take years to build independently.
3. Referral and Trust Networks
Advisors, investors, association members, former colleagues, and professional peers who, when they trust you and understand what you do, will mention your name in the right rooms. It’s where “who sent you?” can determine whether a meeting happens; this network is foundational. It cannot be created transactionally. It has to be earned through genuine relationship-building over time.
4. Market Infrastructure Partners
Industry associations, trade bodies, accelerators, and professional networks whose primary role is not to send you deals, but to give you legitimate presence and visibility in your target market. Being associated with the right infrastructure partners signals credibility to buyers who would otherwise have no way to assess an unfamiliar brand.
The Trust Equation: Why In-Person Still Wins
One of the most consistent observations I have made across a decade of global BD work is this: the relationships that generate the most durable alliance value are almost always the ones that began in person. Virtual tools accelerate and maintain relationships. They rarely create them at depth. The difference matters because the trust needed to generate warm introductions, co-selling commitments, and genuine advocacy typically ignites only through face-to-face interaction.
“Trust isn’t a soft concept in 2026; it’s a performance requirement. Loyalty among partners is fostered through a foundation of integrity, consistent behaviour, and clear communication.” AchieveUnite, Top 10 Partner Ecosystem Trends for 2026
The New York Advantage: Why Gateway Markets Deserve Dedicated Investment
New York is not simply a large market; it is a market of markets. Financial services, media, healthcare, professional services, technology, retail, legal, and professional advisory all have considerable presences in the city. A strong network built in New York has lateral reach into virtually every US sector.
This is the thinking behind the FD Global Connections New York City Immersion Program; an initiative that provides international business leaders with direct access to trusted, long-term professional colleagues who are genuinely prepared to engage with founders who are serious about the US market. These are not cold introductions. They are warm, pre-qualified relationships with advisors, partners, and connectors who know the landscape and can greatly accelerate the ecosystem-building process. It is one example of how gateway markets can support the shift from pipeline to ecosystem.
Building the Ecosystem: A Practical Framework
Step 1: Map Before You Build
Before identifying partners, map the ecosystem you are trying to enter. Who are the trusted advisors in your target customer segment? Which consultants do your ideal buyers turn to for vendor recommendations? This mapping exercise creates the architecture for your alliance strategy.
Step 2: Prioritise Relationships That Have Bilateral Value
The most durable partnerships are those where both parties derive clear, ongoing value from the relationship. When assessing potential alliance partners, ask not only “what can they give us?” but “what are we genuinely offering them?”
Step 3: Invest in In-Person Entry
For scaleups entering the US market, I consistently recommend prioritising concentrated in-person engagement over digital-first outreach. The ROI from a week of high-quality, in-person relationship-building in a market like New York typically exceeds that of months of remote prospecting.
Step 4: Govern the Alliance Relationships You Build
71% of respondents in the KPMG survey cited coordinating goals and expectations among partners as their primary difficulty. Treat alliance relationships with the same structural rigour as customer relationships: establish clear joint objectives, define mutual KPIs, and create regular review cadences.
Step 5: Measure Partner-Generated Value and Share the Story
Only about a third of organisations consistently measure their partner ecosystem performance. Invest in the measurement infrastructure early, and use the data to tell a persuasive internal story about why ecosystem-led BD is worth prioritising.
From Pipeline to Ecosystem: The Critical Imperative
The shift from pipeline-based to ecosystem-led business development requires a different kind of patience; the willingness to invest in relationships before they generate revenue. And it requires a different kind of discipline; treating alliance networks with the same rigour and measurement applied to sales pipelines. In practice, that shift is less a tactic than a long-term operating model.
The pipeline fills up. The ecosystem compounds. That is the difference between growing and scaling.
Human to Human
We live in a moment when AI dominates social media and much of the digital environment in which business development now takes place. A great deal of it feels cold; automated, transactional, optimised for volume rather than connection. The answer is not to reject technology, but to use it to support what still matters most: human trust, human judgment, and human relationships. That contrast makes the human side of business development even more important.
At the core of what we are as human beings is a need for relationship and real connection. Businesses are built on relationships – human-to-human – and that truth does not change, even as technology becomes more sophisticated. Every ecosystem, every alliance, every partnership in this article ultimately comes down to that: two people who trust each other enough to open a door. No algorithm builds that. You do.
I believe AI has a genuine role in business; I use it in my own practice (hello, Clara!) and have built courses in the FD Global Academy with AI tools. But when it comes to building a business across borders, human relationships are irreplaceable. That conviction drives the work I do in New York and is the foundation on which every ecosystem in this article is built.
Next week I’ll be publishing “The Trust Deficit: Why Business Development is Now a Reputation Function’, the next article in this series. If you found this useful, follow me on LinkedIn to catch it when it drops or sign up to FD Global Academy to review all of our articles, programs and webinars.
About the Author
Trena Blair is a global business strategist and US market-entry specialist with over 10 years of experience advising business leaders on international scaling. She works with scaleup CEOs and their business development teams to build the strategic alliance networks, partnerships, and market visibility that drive sustainable cross-border growth into the United States.
Trena developed and hosts FD Global Connections’ New York City Immersion Program, which connects international business leaders with a curated network of trusted, long-term US colleagues including advisors, partners, and connectors, who are ready to meet founders serious about scaling into the American market.
Sources
KPMG LLP — Partner Ecosystems Playing a Central Role in Business Growth and Innovation (December 2024)
6sense — Buyer Experience Research: B2B Buyer Behaviour Findings (cited in SalesHive, 2025)
Refonte Learning — Business Development in 2026: Trends, Skills, and Strategies for Growth (January 2026)
AchieveUnite — Top 10 Partner Ecosystem Trends for 2026 (December 2025)
TBR (Technology Business Research) — 2026 Predictions: AI Momentum Drives Deeper Ecosystem Alliances (March 2026)
Partner.io — Partnerships vs Cold Outreach: What Really Scales in B2B
Salestech Star — Beyond Cold Outreach: How Trust Is Becoming a Scalable Growth Channel (January 2026)
Altios — US Market Entry Strategies: What Really Works (2025)
