Collaborate to achieve a common business goal

Collaboration is the process of two or more people or organizations working together to realize shared goals. Collaboration is very similar to cooperation, and both are the opposite of competition.

Why collaborate?

Humans have collaborated since the beginning of mankind. Living in society was the first form of collaboration, where every member of the society had a role to play for the common good of society.

Collaboration provides the missing link and complementing strengths between the collaborating parties.

Who to collaborate with?

Collaboration should be between people with common goal/s, the same business ethics and work culture. There should be a well-defined minimum common objective with milestones.

When to collaborate?

I guess, whenever there is an opportunity to boomerang your business and/or personal wealth, one should collaborate. Collaboration can be in form of financial commitment too, but in most cases, it's driven by common business objective with customers, society or the environment as the main focus.

Key activities to find a perfect collaboration partner are :

1. Look around and list down 5 potential business types that would add value to your customer.
2. List down the business names and their owners.
3. Approach them with a value proposition. Value proposition could be in terms of helping their customers, employees, expanding the market or flanking competition.
4. List down common minimum goals and commit to achieving them.

Happy collaborating. Will be keen to have your comments and feedback.