Will strategic alliances help you increase your productivity? I believe they will. Read on and I believe you too will want collaboration in your corporate culture.
Productivity Increases
Productivity increases achieved through partnering alliances are plentiful. In a three-year study of Brown & Root/Braun’s alliance with Union Carbide Corp., Danbury, Conn., B&R/B concluded from 18 projects that productivity on partnering jobs was about 16% to 17% better than previous levels.
The Arizona, California and Utah Departments of Transportation have successfully discovered that the partnering approach benefits all involved. DOTs call it Partnering Workshops.
The construction industry has especially benefited from partnering workshops by eliminating the tangle of claims, litigation, and adversarial relationships through the concept of cooperation throughout the life of a project. Identifying potential relationship hazards early was another benefit. Bench marking (companies sharing information on what they do best), especially in the aerospace industry, has shown increased productivity and decreased costs across the board.
Some of the many productivity increases that are available through strategic alliance relationships:
1. Market intelligence relating to new products, processes, and competitive technologies and markets
2. Market forecasts for large orders to allow intelligent production schedules
3. Improved product quality
4. Improved working relationships
5. Improved communications through structure to promote operating efficiencies
6. Improvement of products/services
7. Sharing of information
8. Improved culture and business philosophy
9. Recognition, award and/or reward system for meeting and/or exceeding established goals
10. Reduced Paperwork
Ultimately the benefit to developing strategic alliances with others is for solutions through mutually beneficial efforts. Together you can solve your problems, those of your customers’ suppliers’ and employees’.
Be sure you know what it is that you are want to get out of each of your alliance efforts! It's rare that a company can be all things to all people. Working in cooperation with others is the solution. Adopting the paradigm of strategic alliances will get you much closer to your goals than without these valuable relationships.
Finally, and decisively important, when a company embraces the philosophy of collaboration through strategic alliances, the result will be improvement in quality, productivity and profitability. First, this philosophy must be developed in the executive suite and carefully delivered through the organization in a method that will allow middle management and line workers to see the benefits they will receive. Otherwise, sabotage will your organizational norm. And yes, this is done through cooperation and collaboration.
