The word, collaboration, is the second most common word used in the business and economic space. The fact about collaboration is that it requires leadership and a good level of social skills. It is deeply a human activity because innovation or tool can independently solve the problem of poor collaboration.
Collaboration is the uniting or coming together of two or more parties to achieve a shared purpose or foreseen result.
The parties involved are usually deeply involved in the process that will bring about the goal.
In most organisations, employees are encouraged to work as teams to produce great results. When people work as a group, they can achieve far more than what would have been achieved if one person embarked on the project or task. So also is projects or programmes more productive and fulfilling when two or more organisations come together to address or proffer solution to challenges.
One valid fact about collaboration is that each party has something tangible to offer that will improve the project, programme or innovation. For instance, a tech company might come up with a programme or project that has to deal with reaching out to individuals, who are interested in tech and have tech skills but do not have laptops to work with to earn a living.
The above programme is a thoughtful one, but this company needs a media company, a laptop-producing company and a human resource company that will collaborate with them to make the programme successful.
The media organisation has more media contacts and as such will set up strategies that will help the tech company to reach out to the right people that need the laptop. The laptop producing company, on the other hand, will help donate or advise on the best laptops that individuals at that level can use to earn a living. The human resource company will help to evaluate the capacity of each individual to ensure that their exact needs are met. This is because some might have learnt a tech skill but need to train more before they are given access to a laptop.
Having seen the role collaboration plays in business development, your organisation can be part of any programme or project that will help to impact the lives of the members of society.
At Creativespace, we run a series of programmes that are geared towards ensuring that we build the Africa of our dream. We are open to collaborations, donations and partnerships.
