I was in a brainstorming session with colleagues recently to come up with messaging to the field on developing a playbook for working with a partner/competitor. The facilitator led with the below quote from Henry Ford:
"If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said 'faster horses'".The point was that to harness the value of co-opetition we have to think differently.
It occurs to me that as alliance managers, we're charged with collaborating with our partners in ways that drive innovation and create value for both companies. Doing this requires creative thinking, busting up the status quo and thinking outside the box.
Getting beyond "faster horses" thinking isn't easy, but that's one of the advantages collaboration with a partner can bring to the table. A fresh perspective and new thinking. And that's what makes our roles as alliance managers so valuable!
It is surely true that in this electronic world, we are asked and many people believe that the key to success is to make things faster. While speed and reactivity are inportant, I believe in doing things BETTER !! And in the channel world this means spending time building strong relationships, building trust with your partners and setting-up the fundations of a long term collaboration.
ReplyDeleteComing back to Ford's example, in order to speed-up his production, he only offered black as a colour, and his insistance on keeping it this way almost brought him to bankrupcy.