Can collaboration work for you?

Changes are taking place globally in the way businesses achieve a competitive advantage.  New ways of doing business are arising as businesses move from mainly firm-to-firm adversarial business models to relationship-based competition.

In an age where business knows no boundaries, collaboration offers opportunities for smaller firms to work together for mutual benefit even if they are located some distance apart.

When a group of business people work together for mutual benefit and consciously seek to build trust and knowledge on a reciprocal basis, they are building the framework to create a competitive advantage.

Cynics would say that history is littered with the carcasses of groups that have failed.  Most started with enthusiasm and good will, only to fall along the wayside.

So what are the characteristics of successful groups?

1. A Clear purpose
2. Added value to participants.

3. Dynamic leadership.

4. Selective admission.

5. Benchmarks.

6. Activities that stimulate continuous improvement.

What are the steps that need to be followed in setting up a group?

1. Start looking for other firms as potential exchange partners.
2. Set up procedures that will define what is to be achieved and how the group will go about it.
3. Identify possible problem areas and agree how issues are to be resolved.
4. Develop an understanding about where each member is coming from and what his or her expectations/priorities are.
5. Build skills that enable the groups (internal and external) to operate cohesively.
6. Develop/provide the appropriate channels for communication.
7. Define how members will share knowledge and how they will communicate.
8. Undertake a pilot project to test how best to build business relationships, establish communications, how people will behave and if expectations can be met.
9. Expand cooperative activities as trust and joint satisfaction is achieved.
10. Build commitment-explicit or implicit-and invest in maintaining these relationship.

How do you set one up?

Create an appropriate environment for collaboration

Collaboration is a complex activity and does not take place automatically.  Experience shows that, irrespective of the opportunity, issue or topic being addressed, the change process involves human behaviour and hence relationships between people from different firms with their own needs and perspectives.

Build from the experience of others

It is possible to ‘stand on the shoulders’ of others by using (in appropriately modified form,) the strategies used by successful groups.

Choose membership carefully

It is important that members be chosen by what they can bring to the group and operate within its “rules of engagement”.

Develop and use effective Support Resources

Needed resources to manage the project and knowledge and information that arises from it, are available on the web.

© David Milstein & Associates 2005. David Milstein & Associates is a member of Synergy Partners.