Collaboration Strategy: How to Get What You Want from Employees, Suppliers and Business Partners

Current strategy thinking focuses on what to do, not how to motivate employees, suppliers and business partners to do it. Whether working with employees or with external suppliers, companies are increasingly stumbling with implementing strategy. But why is this happening? And how can we address it? Collaboration Strategy argues that motivating people and companies is fundamental to business success. In the activities that matter most in today's economy – design, development, marketing, sales, projects – it is hard to define just what you want done. Setting up business activities to get the results you want becomes a strategic challenge. In industries from pharmaceuticals to fashion, software to stock exchanges, new ways of working with partners that break down traditional company boundaries and establish new roles and relationships have enabled businesses to grow rapidly and achieve superior profits. At the heart of this book, Felix Barber and Michael Goold have combined their considerable expertise to present a complete and original 'collaboration framework' based on their findings over a seven year period in which they interviewed over 200 businesses. The framework explains how to set up to get the results you want for a range of different activities and industries. They present the 10 requirements needed for profitable collaboration, and use real-life scenarios to apply their framework and analysis, offering a menu of tactics to address the most common problems in setting up collaboration with partners. Essentially, you must design a basis for working together, or 'collaboration,' with your employees and suppliers that will get them to do what you want.

About the Author :
Felix is a Director of Ashridge Strategic Management Centre. He is also a non executive director of the Swiss institutional asset management company CE Asset Management AG, and an independent consultant. He has written a number of articles including The Surprising Economics of a “People Business” and The Strategic Secret of Private Equity in Harvard Business Review. Before joining the Centre in 2005, he was a Senior Partner at The Boston Consulting Group where he worked for the firm's London, Munich and Zurich offices and ran the firm's worldwide Organization practice. He holds an MA from Oxford University. Michael is a founding director of the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre. His many publications include Strategy for the Corporate Level (Jossey-Bass 2014) and Designing Effective Organizations: How to Create Structured Networks (Jossey-Bass, 2002). Prior to establishing the Centre in 1987, he was a Senior Fellow at the London Business School and, before that, a Partner at The Boston Consulting Group. Michael continues to consult with UK and international clients from a variety of industry sectors. He holds an MA and a BPhil. from Oxford University and an MBA from Stanford Business School.

Review :
The authors draw on great case examples and their years of real world experience to offer a valuable framework and many useful tools to help executives identify and address the challenges in effective collaboration. -- Rich Lesser CEO, The Boston Consulting Group Inc. Even the best run organizations struggle to make collaborative arrangements work. This is an important, highly practical contribution to a key element of business success. -- Professor Sir Andrew Likierman Dean, London Business School Collaboration Strategy makes a significant practical contribution to a modern theory of industrial organization - one that strategists will find immediately useful. -- Steven Weber Professor of Political Science and School of Information, University of California Berkeley A fascinating new perspective, which highlights how much of business success now depends on good collaboration strategies. Very insightful. -- Sir Ian Cheshire CEO, Kingfisher PLC This book is a very thoughtful guide for achieving greater collaboration in an increasingly complex world where good intentions are not enough. The book will be a great help for senior executives and board members. -- Colin Carter Board Member, Wesfarmers Ltd., SEEK Ltd., and Lend Lease Corporation Ltd We are constantly evaluating what it takes to drive the maximum value from a vast array of relationships. This book is a timely analysis of what profitable collaboration requires. -- David Redfern Chief Strategy Officer, GlaxoSmithKline PLC When work is creative, how to get it done is strategic. This book helps you devise a solution to the problem adapted to your needs. I recommend it to anyone wanting to set up a business to get results. -- Art Peck President, Growth, Innovation and Digital, Gap Inc. An engaging and insightful guide to succeeding in today's business world. The authors ask tough questions and uncover sometimes surprising reasons that certain companies are able to succeed across industries and markets. Barber and Goold have provided a great service. -- Chris Heller President, Keller Williams Worldwide