This is an article “Why Collaboration Works in Business” by Marc Primo
There are already hundreds of articles online which will tell you the importance of collaboration in business but this one promises to be different as it simplifies all the important yet most overlooked insights entrepreneurs have about the subject.
Taking collaboration as part of your business model is pretty far-fetched for some businessmen as it requires working with external entities to create or come up with a product or service. While this is pretty much essential to all businesses, the concept of making it as a legitimate model seems to entail so much work.
To brace yourself on how to make collaboration part of your strategies, here are some useful nuggets you might want to consider:
Avoid working by yourself
Bringing people together to effectively work towards a mutual goal is one of the main objectives in business. However, only a few can work out the challenges of forming a cohesive team of both internal and external professionals. Making your business everyone’s business doesn’t necessarily mean you’re working for others and not yourself. Forming efficient communication patterns with your partners and colleagues prevents you from struggling to make things work as a whole.
Networking events are organized for the simple aim of bringing people with mutual goals to work together. You can discover more chances to increase your business potential and help others while doing it as well. If you plan to do everything by yourself without nurturing your confidence in people, then you’ll find it harder to accomplish greater things for your business. It’s truly as simple as that.
Collaboration will always be better than competition
It’s hard to fathom how some entrepreneurs prefer to compete with other businesses than look for ways to collaborate and innovate their respective businesses. Empowering one another is one of the best kept secrets of successful and accomplished companies. Forging business to business arrangements to create more profit from collaborations is one good way of looking at it. For example, participating in networking events as a vendor allows you to gather fresh insights, consider potential partnerships, and earn during the event.
Collaborating with other businesses almost always end up in win-win situations provided both companies integrate it with their business models and do their parts without any leverage to out-profit the other. Keeping both companies’ goals in your best interest can open up new opportunities and connect you to more people who can help you upgrade your business.
Always keep an open-mind
One good model you should look at if you want to create an effective business model that’s centered on collaboration is that of foundations. Understanding that proceeds can go further and create more impact through collaborations with nonprofit organizations or how schools focus on solving an education pain point to solicit more support is collaboration at its best.
In business, it has become a niche for the numerous tech startups that have entered into partnerships to address the COVID-19 pandemic or business incubators receiving funding from venture capitalists. Today, helping yourself along with the competition creates a bigger impact that does more good for the consumers and the businesses alike. Being transparent about your strengths and weaknesses and seeking help rather than freebies from others will float your boat to more vast waters of profit than you can ever imagine, especially when you encounter storms from time to time.
Being skilled in collaboration takes practice and genuine concern for all of your stakeholders. It can go a long way in creating new innovations in services or products and even save lives if you think of how Pfizer and BioNTech collaborated in coming up with an FDA-approved vaccine for COVID-19 in record time. That alone proves how integrating it in your business model can work for you and your consumer base.
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