Collaboration

As we continue to experience the effects of the current economy, the gap between the current business strategy and the available resources continues to widen.  There is increasing demand from customers and consumers to deliver better value and this needs to be balanced with maintaining shareholder value, top line growth and effective cost management. For many organisations the answers lie in a combination of collaboration, innovation and better relationship management.

Collaboration covers a wide spectrum of business strategies from simple co-operation at one end to the co-creation of value at the other. Those businesses who are multi-product, multi-market, multi-country and multi-networked there are likely to be a range of strategies that co-exist across the business. What is less likely is that they are part of an integrated approach to collaboration.

Collaboration, like other business strategies needs to be driven top down. There is a new British Standard, BS11000, that provides a useful framework for building collaborative partnerships. Driven by the work done by PSL (a not for profit initiative between the UK government and the CBI) a range of businesses have managed to successfully deliver value through this framework. Thoughtcrew is a PSL partner and brings its expertise in strategy development, strategy implementation and innovation to bear in complex business situations. We offer a complimentary inital collaboration appraisal and if this is of interest please get in touch via our contact us page.  You can download a white paper that explores stakeholder engagement, a critical aspect of collaboration here.