Boardroom Despatches: Collaborate or die

This month columnist Rene Carayol considers the third - and most often forgotten - quality at the heart of great modern businesses: the ability to collaborate. But it isn't just about suppliers and other external partners...

I've been in a lot of boardrooms, on a lot of shop floors, and on my travels it is blindingly obvious there are three things you need in business - top leadership, the right culture and collaboration. So why do we put the first two qualities on a pedestal and pretend the third isn't important?

There is an old Yiddish proverb that says: "If you want a helping hand, you'll find it at the end of your arm." Of course we all want to be self-reliant but there is a problem with this approach. And I cannot tell you the number of times I've met CIOs who don't know what collaboration means.

Take the average contract. If you're the head of an IT department, or anyone else in there with purchasing power, odds are you'll be well aware that suppliers need to work within parameters. You want what they promised you at those glitzy presentations and fat lunches -so you have service level agreements.

But do you know when those SLAs are no good? No, not when the conditions are too tough (though that isn't a great idea). It's when they focus on penalties rather than incentives.

Any company wants to be around in 10 years time. You should also want your suppliers to be too. The days of an M&S bearing down on a network of suppliers are gone, or at least they should be.

I've said it before but most IT vendors, in a world of increasing over-capacity, are for the first time in 20 years having to sell again. Now, although in the short term it may seem like fair sport, it isn't a good idea to beat them down so much that in the medium term they go bust. You probably need them, if they're any good.

Consider that against another backdrop - many a company's biggest failure is trying to build a new competency from scratch. I have some advice: continue to do what you do best, partner for the rest. No reader of this publication should be surprised to hear business and technology are moving too fast and are too important these days to be done alone.

Cue a common CIO/CEO concern - "But we lose control," they tell me. You want to be a world beater? Here's what Ayrton Senna had to say: "If you're in complete control, you're just not going fast enough."

And let me highlight something else. Collaboration isn't only an external thing. CIOs must now collaborate with their peers around the business. They cannot simply be an internal service provider, especially if they have boardroom aspirations.

Get the message - nothing is best done alone any more.

And when you've got religion, there's one thing you need to do, and that's choose business partners with no less care than you'll choose life partners. Think of your passions, your goals, your cultures and more.

Here are some examples of collaboration, good and bad. Ford and Firestone were partners for around 100 years. But when there was that damaging SUV tyre recall two years ago their relationship hit the skids.

Then take Sony and Ericsson. The Swedish company knows mobile technology but can't design for toffee. Sony was a so-so tech player with second-to-none consumer savvy. Despite well-publicised growing pains, SonyEricsson may well end up the main challenger to Nokia.

And finally take Swissair and Sabena. These allied airlines were living proof that two rubbish companies do not make a good one. They just go out of business quicker.

Collaborate, please. But collaborate well.

Rene Carayol is a former IT director and board member of IPC Media. He is now the CEO of consultancy Voodoo and co-author of the best-selling Corporate Voodoo and My Voodoo books. He can be contacted at rene@carayol.com.