Many heads of business view collaboration as a key part of innovating successfully. These ‘leaders’ understand that it would be impossible to complete projects or innovation targets just by using internal teams alone. The answer? To look outside of the organisation for strategic partners… Successful examples of this include the Mercedes/Swatch collaboration that brought us the SMART Car. Who’d have thought of innovating with a watch manufacturer to develop the idea of a new type of car… maybe it was because they each brought completely different skills and experiences to the table…
Another great example is the Costa Coffee chain of coffee shops. This market is extremely competitive with giants like Starbucks, Café Nero etc each with targets on market place domination, but Costa Coffeehave successful in collaborating with some not so likely partners through its concessionary partners, these include coffee stores in Abbey National banks, W. H. Smiths and Ottakars book stores and Homebase DIY stores. These ‘concession stores’ are managed by the Costa team. They provide the same level of service but with that little something extra: customers in concession stores relax with a cup of coffee and/or food as they take a break from retail therapy or ponder/justify the purchase they’re about to make…
But beyond collaboration is ‘open innovation’. This idea has been successfully implemented within companies like Proctor and Gamble and IBM as a way of driving innovation forward. Open innovation changes the humdrum innovation, norm – helping avoid the ‘inspirational block – by injecting a fresh perspective/approach from collaborators to work on innovation projects. By using ‘partners’ it reduces costs, speeds up processes and introduces ideas that probably wouldn’t have been thought of…
Proctor and Gamble sources 50% of its innovations from outside using open innovation. A successful example of one of these early collaborations was Mr. Clean Magic Eraser!
Leading organisations, I believe, are leading the way because they’ve identified that in order to progress you need to think about things in a different way.
Through using social connections and platforms you have the chance of meeting people that may look at what you do – or vice versa – in a different way, and by collaborating on a joint venture – it could be the missing link that was needed to make the project a real winner.
On that note I’ll leave you with a final example: Did you know that the humble post-it-not was the bi-product of a failed glue! Just remember this, one mans mistake can be another’s inspiration 
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