Nine key points of business collaboration
Better connectivity and business collaboration tools are making it easier than ever to work with other organisations. But what should you look for when you're searching for a new business to collaborate with?
What to consider in a business collaboration?
Team collaboration is crucial in your own business. It's also essential when you're working with people outside your organisation.
Many influential organisations regard these business collaborations and partnerships as a tool for gaining competitive advantage and are entering into formal long-term agreements or collaborating on specific one-off projects.
Whatever partnership you're looking for, getting together with another company can help you scale up your business, or add value and new skills.
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Finding a business to collaborate with
For some organisations, it might be immediately obvious who they should collaborate with. For others, it might need a bit of strategic thinking to find potential partners.
Either way, there are several fundamental aspects to consider when looking for a business to collaborate with.
A common goal
If each business has a different idea of where the collaboration is going, then it won't work. Each party needs to be on the same page from the very beginning. You should also have a shared end goal to help guide business decisions and adaptations throughout the journey.
Shared values
Like-minded thinking minimises conflict and opens up greater opportunities for expansion or innovation. So, a collaboration between members that share business values will work much more smoothly.
Complementary skills
One of the biggest benefits of a collaboration is using the skills and resources of your partners to strengthen the value proposition.
If these don't match, the collaboration might well run into logistical difficulties.
Mutual trust
Collaboration is about working together. And that demands a certain level of mutual trust and respect. Any imbalance is likely to breed ill feeling and lead to unequal contributions not useful for a successful partnership.
A similar business culture
It might be difficult to engage if your ways of working are very different. For example, if your potential partners have a rigid hierarchical structure and you don't, this could lead to less effective collaboration.
The right tools
Communication comes to the fore to ensure smooth integration. Working in multi-company groups can be challenging, so having the right collaboration tools in place is essential when working towards a shared goal.
Ways to overcome distance
Geography and language are no longer barriers to collaboration. In fact, one of the reasons you might collaborate with another business is to enter new and more distant markets.
But you need to make sure that you have the right tools in place to communicate effectively at a distance. Using platforms such as Workplace, for example, can help you overcome language barriers and join up global, multi-company groups
Establishing the right type of business collaborations
So, you've found the right business to collaborate with. Now you need to optimise the ways you work with them.
There are many different models for business collaboration. They range from collaborating around a single issue or product, to formal partnerships, to creating a new joint organisation.
Hype Innovation puts forward four main types of collaboration:
- Alliance. Two or three businesses agree to temporarily pool their skills, knowledge, products, services or resources
- Portfolio. A centrally managed collaboration. This involves several independent businesses agreeing to share knowledge and build a portfolio
- Innovation network. A group of interconnected businesses share goals and coordinate on products, services or processes
- Ecosystem. The most advanced type of collaboration. Various organisations – and even end customers – form long-term interdependencies
Whichever approach you take, effective collaborations build on your ability to share. Sharing knowledge and resources or skills and experience – and ultimately, sharing success or failure.
The business opportunity is there for collaboration; you just need to find your business match…
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