There was a time when I would look at photographs of companies signing Memorandums of Understanding and feel a little envious. The photographs always seemed to suggest that something significant was about to happen. Two senior executives would sit at a beautifully arranged table, exchange documents, shake hands and smile for the cameras, while company logos filled the backdrop behind them. Soon afterward, the photographs would appear on LinkedIn, Facebook, corporate websites and sometimes in newspapers or on television. From the outside, it looked like the beginning of a major partnership, and I naturally assumed that a large project, investment or business opportunity would soon follow.
For a startup founder, these images can be particularly powerful because recognition from a large and established organisation feels like validation. When you have spent years trying to convince customers, partners and investors that your small company deserves to be taken seriously, seeing another startup signing an MoU with a major corporation, university, government agency or multinational company can make you wonder when your turn will come. I felt that too. I wanted Favoriot to be recognised in the same way, to stand alongside respected organisations and demonstrate that our small Malaysian company had earned a place within their ecosystem.
So, naturally, I pursued MoUs too.
And when those opportunities eventually came, I discovered that the experience really did provide some of the things I had imagined. There was recognition, publicity and a temporary spotlight on the company. People congratulated us, staff felt proud and our association with a recognised organisation helped strengthen our credibility. Yet over time, I began to understand something that I had completely underestimated when I was admiring those photographs from a distance.
The MoU signing is often the easiest part of the partnership. The difficult part begins after everyone goes home.
When an MoU Feels Like You Have Finally Arrived
For a startup, being invited to sign an MoU with a much larger organisation can feel like an important milestone. Startups spend an enormous amount of time knocking on doors, sending proposals, making presentations, demonstrating products and trying to persuade organisations to give them a chance. Many conversations lead nowhere, some proposals disappear into silence and others remain under evaluation for months, so when a respected organisation finally says that it wants to formalise a relationship with you, it is understandable to feel proud.
The signing ceremony reinforces that feeling because everything surrounding it signals importance. Senior executives attend, photographers appear, corporate communications teams prepare announcements and social media posts begin receiving congratulations. Friends and colleagues may tell you that something big is happening, and for a brief period the company enjoys attention that would normally be difficult for a small startup to obtain.
There is nothing wrong with appreciating that moment because recognition matters, particularly when you are building credibility in a market where people often judge smaller companies by the organisations willing to associate with them. What I eventually learned, though, was that public visibility should never be confused with actual progress. A photograph can show that two organisations intend to work together, but it cannot tell us whether they actually will.
The Photograph Is Not the Partnership
One of the strange things I noticed over the years was how much effort could go into preparing an MoU compared with the effort that sometimes followed after it was signed. Before the ceremony, everyone seemed extremely busy. There were discussions about clauses, legal reviews, amendments, logos, signatories, witnesses, dates, venues, speeches and schedules. Documents could travel between legal departments for weeks or even months while both organisations tried to agree on the exact wording.
Then finally the day arrived. Everyone gathered, documents were signed, hands were shaken, photographs were taken and the announcement was published. Afterward, everyone returned to their normal responsibilities, and sometimes something rather unexpected followed.
Very little happened.
The irony was difficult to ignore. We could spend months getting permission to say that we intended to work together, yet spend far less time deciding exactly what we were going to work on.
That experience gradually changed the way I viewed MoUs because I realised that the ceremony represented only an intention. The partnership itself did not exist in the signatures or the photographs. It existed in the meetings, projects, customer engagements, research activities, training programmes and deployments that were supposed to follow.
Different MoUs, Similar Challenges
Of course, not every MoU has the same purpose. Our collaborations with universities, for example, usually have very different objectives from our collaborations with industry partners. University MoUs may focus on teaching and learning, research, student projects, training, internships, grants, technology adoption or joint academic activities. Industry MoUs are more likely to explore market opportunities, customer engagements, technology partnerships, solution development, joint proposals or new business opportunities.
On paper, these agreements can sound extremely promising because they often contain phrases such as “jointly explore opportunities”, “promote collaboration”, “share expertise” and “develop mutually beneficial activities”. There is nothing wrong with such language, but I have learned that broad statements of intention can easily create the illusion that many things are happening when nothing specific has actually started.
The words explore, promote and collaborate sound positive, but somebody still has to turn those words into a project, programme or commercial opportunity. Without that next step, even the most impressive MoU can remain nothing more than a nicely formatted document stored somewhere in a shared folder.
The CEO Signed It, But Does the Organisation Know About It?
One of the biggest problems I have observed is that an MoU can exist at the senior management level without becoming part of the organisation below it. The CEO may know about it, the Vice Chancellor may know about it, the Dean or Managing Director may have attended the ceremony, and the corporate communications team may have published the photographs, but the people who are actually expected to carry out the work may know very little about what was agreed.
This becomes particularly difficult in large organisations because senior executives are rarely the people who will organise technical workshops, prepare customer proposals, supervise students, integrate systems, coordinate research activities or conduct regular follow ups. Those responsibilities eventually have to move down to managers, engineers, lecturers, researchers, business development teams and project staff.
If those people were never involved in the original discussion, never properly briefed and never given clear responsibility, the MoU effectively becomes an agreement between two senior executives rather than a working relationship between two organisations. The signatures may be there, but the machinery required to turn those signatures into action has never been switched on.
The Missing Champion
If there is one recurring problem that I now look for immediately, it is the absence of a champion. Every partnership needs someone on both sides who feels personally responsible for making something happen. Without those individuals, everybody may support the collaboration in principle while nobody feels accountable for moving it forward.
This is where things can become almost comical. Senior management assumes business development will handle it, business development assumes the technical team will propose something, the technical team waits for management to provide direction, and everyone quietly expects the partner organisation to initiate the first activity. Unfortunately, the partner may be going through exactly the same internal confusion.
Months can disappear surprisingly quickly this way. Eventually someone notices that an MoU signed for three years has only six months remaining and suddenly an email appears asking whether both organisations should organise an activity before it expires. By that stage, the focus has shifted from building the partnership to proving that the partnership existed at all.
Why So Many MoUs Slowly Lose Momentum
Looking back at the MoUs and partnerships I have observed, several patterns repeatedly explain why good intentions fail to become tangible outcomes.
1. There Is No Named Owner
A partnership cannot survive on goodwill alone. Someone from each organisation must be clearly responsible for coordinating activities, arranging follow ups and keeping the relationship moving. If responsibility is distributed vaguely across several departments, everyone can reasonably assume that someone else is taking care of it.
2. There Is No First Project
One of the biggest mistakes is signing a broad agreement without identifying what both organisations will actually do first. Rather than beginning with a long list of possible collaborations, I now believe it is much better to identify one achievable activity such as a workshop, customer presentation, pilot deployment, research proposal, student programme, training session or joint solution. A small activity that actually happens is far more valuable than ten impressive possibilities that never leave the document.
3. There Is No Budget or Resource Commitment
Collaboration sounds easy until somebody has to pay for equipment, allocate engineers, provide facilities, fund travel or dedicate staff time. If these questions are not discussed early, both organisations may enthusiastically support an activity while quietly expecting the other party to provide the resources. Eventually the idea stalls because nobody has budgeted for it.
4. The People Doing the Work Were Not Involved
An agreement made entirely at senior management level can face resistance or indifference when it eventually reaches operational teams. Those teams already have targets, deadlines and responsibilities of their own, so asking them to support an activity they never planned for can make the collaboration feel like additional work rather than a shared opportunity.
5. Organisational Priorities Change
Three years can be a very long time inside an organisation. CEOs change, managers move, budgets disappear, departments are reorganised and strategic priorities shift. If an MoU depends heavily on one senior sponsor and has not developed working relationships between the teams below, the collaboration can quickly lose momentum when that person moves elsewhere.
6. The Agreement Tries to Cover Too Much
Some MoUs contain almost every possible form of collaboration imaginable, from research and training to commercialisation, technology development, student activities and international market opportunities. While this looks impressive on paper, it can make execution harder because nobody knows where to begin. Two clearly defined objectives with responsible owners and timelines can produce far more than fifteen broad areas of collaboration.
7. There Is No Timeline
Saying that two organisations will work together “in the future” is almost an invitation for delay. Unless activities have dates, milestones and review points, tomorrow becomes next month and next month quietly becomes next year. By the time everyone notices, much of the MoU period may already have passed.
8. Nobody Defines Success
Perhaps the simplest question is also one of the most frequently overlooked: what should exist at the end of the MoU that does not exist today? It might be trained students, research outputs, commercial deployments, joint customer proposals, new products or revenue. Without some measurable definition of success, an MoU can remain officially active for years while producing very little.
When the Expiry Date Suddenly Gets Everyone’s Attention
There is another situation that I have encountered often enough to find slightly amusing. An MoU remains quiet for most of its duration, then suddenly becomes important when someone notices that it is about to expire. Emails start circulating, meetings are proposed and eventually someone asks whether we should renew the agreement for another three years.
These days, my first question would be very simple: What did we accomplish during the current MoU?
I think that question should come before any discussion about renewal because extending an inactive agreement does not suddenly make the relationship productive. It merely gives inactivity a new expiry date. If both organisations have produced meaningful results, renewal makes perfect sense. If almost nothing happened, perhaps the better conversation is not about signing another document but understanding why the first one failed to move.
What I Would Do Differently Today
After going through these experiences, I have become much more careful about entering into another MoU simply because the opportunity sounds impressive or because the organisation involved carries a well known name. These days, I try to look beyond the signing ceremony and ask what will actually happen after everyone leaves the room. An MoU should create a clear path towards something meaningful, whether that means a commercial project, research collaboration, training programme, technology deployment or another measurable outcome. If we cannot explain what we intend to accomplish together, then perhaps we are not ready to sign anything yet.
Before agreeing to another MoU, I would want clear answers to these questions:
- Why are we signing this MoU? There should be a clear business, educational, research or operational purpose behind the relationship rather than simply gaining publicity, taking photographs or being associated with a recognised organisation.
- What will we actually do together? Before signing, I would prefer to identify at least one concrete activity that can begin soon afterward, such as a joint customer engagement, pilot project, research proposal, training programme, technology deployment or student initiative.
- Who owns the relationship? Both organisations should appoint specific people who are responsible for moving the collaboration forward. Senior executives may open the door and provide support, but someone must be responsible for the follow ups, meetings, activities and results.
- What happens in the first 30, 60 and 90 days? I would rather see a simple action plan for the first three months than an impressive list of possible collaborations covering the next three years. Early activities create momentum and quickly reveal whether both parties are genuinely committed.
- Who provides the resources? Every activity requires something, whether it is people, technology, facilities, equipment, funding or simply staff time. These responsibilities should be discussed openly before both sides discover later that everyone expected the other party to provide them.
- How will we measure progress? The MoU should have a few simple outcomes that tell us whether the relationship is actually producing something. This could include the number of projects started, students trained, proposals submitted, customers approached, research activities completed or revenue generated.
- How often will we review the partnership? I would prefer a simple quarterly review where both sides ask what has been completed, what is delayed and what should happen next. That is far better than suddenly remembering the MoU three weeks before it expires and scrambling to organise an activity simply to show that something happened.
- What commercial outcome are we seeking? For industry collaborations, we should not be uncomfortable discussing business. If the intention is to create market opportunities, develop solutions, reach customers or generate revenue, then both parties should understand how that is expected to happen and what role each organisation will play.
- Are the operational teams involved? The people who will eventually carry out the work should understand the collaboration before the photographers arrive. If the agreement exists only between senior management while the technical, business development, research or operational teams know nothing about it, the chances of meaningful progress become much smaller.
- Do we even need an MoU? This has become one of the most important questions for me. Sometimes a project agreement, purchase order, research contract, reseller arrangement, pilot agreement or even a small joint activity can move the relationship forward much faster. If two organisations genuinely want to work together, perhaps the best first step is simply to start doing something together.
That final question has become increasingly important to me because I have learned that formalising a relationship and building a relationship are two very different things. An MoU may provide structure and demonstrate commitment, but the document itself cannot create commitment. That comes from people who are willing to spend their time, resources and energy turning promises into actual work.
Not every relationship needs a ceremony, and not every collaboration needs to begin with two executives holding documents in front of a camera. Sometimes the strongest partnerships begin much more quietly, with two teams solving a small problem together, delivering something useful and discovering along the way that they actually work well together.
I Now Prefer Work First, MoU Later
My thinking today is almost the reverse of what it used to be. Previously, I saw the MoU as the beginning of collaboration, followed by activities that would eventually lead to projects and results. Now I increasingly prefer to begin with the relationship itself by identifying a problem, trying a small activity, proving that both teams can work together and then expanding from there.
If both organisations want to organise a workshop, let us organise it. If there is a customer opportunity, let us meet the customer. If we want to test whether two technologies can work together, let the engineers connect them. If a university wants students to learn using Favoriot, let us start with a class, a project or a training session. If there is a research opportunity, let us prepare the proposal. Once real activities are taking place and both organisations can see the value of continuing the relationship, formalising it through an MoU may make much more sense.
There is also a practical consideration for startups. Getting an MoU approved can itself take months because documents have to move through management, legal departments and several rounds of amendments before a signing date can even be arranged. I have reached the point where I sometimes wonder whether we could have completed a small project during the time spent negotiating the document that says we intend to work together.
For a startup, time is one resource we cannot casually waste. We need customers, deployments, partners who are willing to act and activities that produce results. Public recognition is useful, but it cannot replace commercial progress.
The Photograph I Would Rather See
I still appreciate the purpose of an MoU and I am not against signing one when there is a genuine reason to formalise a relationship. It can signal commitment, provide structure, strengthen trust between organisations and help communicate the partnership internally and externally. For a small startup working with a respected organisation, the recognition can also strengthen credibility, which should not be dismissed.
What has changed is what I consider worthy of celebration.
The photograph taken during the signing ceremony is nice, but I would now be much happier to see another photograph taken twelve months later showing students building real projects, engineers deploying a system at a customer site, researchers completing useful work, partners winning a joint project or a customer benefiting from something that both organisations created together. That second photograph may never appear in a newspaper and perhaps it will receive fewer likes on social media, but it tells a much more meaningful story.
The first photograph says, “We intend to work together.”
The second photograph says, “We actually did.”
After years of watching, pursuing and participating in MoUs, that difference has become very clear to me. The signing ceremony can create attention and the photograph can create a sense of progress, but neither guarantees that anything meaningful will happen afterward. The real test begins when the stage has been dismantled, the backdrop has been removed, the executives have returned to their offices and the social media post has disappeared down everyone’s feed.
That is when somebody needs to pick up the phone, schedule the first working meeting and ask the question that perhaps should have been answered before the signing ceremony:
“What are we actually going to do together now?”
That question may not produce a beautiful photograph, but answering it is where a real partnership begins.
I would love to hear how others have experienced this. Have you been involved in an MoU that eventually produced a successful project, research programme, commercial opportunity or long term partnership? Or have you seen one quietly reach its expiry date without producing anything meaningful? Please share your experience in the comments. I suspect there are many lessons hidden behind those smiling MoU photographs.
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