Synergy and Coopetition: A New Business Model for a New Economy
By Lea Belair, Business Innovator – Coaching Center of Vermont, Inc.
Like it or not, business leaders are reinventing, retooling and reengineering to become leaner and greener as we find ourselves in the new global economic reality. Integral to the process of reinvention, we’re seeing the value of conversation and story rise to the top of the chatter and clutter of relationship building. The value of conversation and story, couched in ever-new and ever-changing technologies, is that it prompts us to expand how we interface with customers and business partners alike because: Together we are better. I’ll share a story of how this works in a few moments…
Synergy means different entities cooperate advantageously for a final outcome. Simply defined, the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts. We’ve long known that our story is our enduring value. Each company, each industry segment, each customer, has their unique story, and that story is their sweet spot. In order to act synergistically, we are prompted to start new conversations, in new sectors, with new customers and new partners – and to and keep those conversations alive and vital. Leaving behind the wasteful practices of traditional competition, this need for synergy evolves us beyond competition to coopetition, where through conversation and dialog and the desire to do and be more with less, each business weaves together the parts of their business where they can stick to their story, do not compete, and where they share common costs and resources.
Here’s a simple story of synergy and coopetition in action:
The Coaching Center of Vermont, Inc. provides training in coaching skills as well as individual and group coaching programs. The University of Vermont’s Vermont Business Center provides professional certificate programs and educational resources to the professional community. After a four year traditional working partnership, we decided to pursue a new value proposition: Better together. Our conversation led us to reinvent our relationship so that the Coaching Center now contributes its bricks and mortar capital at the Champlain Mill in Winooski and administrative support, as well as our virtual community and name recognition and UVM/VBC gets to maximize its existing resources and training caché without diluting its resources and focus in lean times. One advantageous result, the Coaching Center of Vermont was able to secure $18,000 in grant funding from the Vermont Training Program at the Vermont Department of Economic Development for its UVM/VBC offerings without siphoning funds away from the University of Vermont’s funding pot.
As we move to greater expansion of our web-based presence and constant innovation, many companies are creating new platforms for conversation such as blogging, micro-blogging and commenting. In this environment, customers increasingly drive the conversation and the opportunity for synergy. As we invest in a new, sustainable business infrastructure, we invite others into our sphere of influence in the spirit of synergy and coopetition.
How can we constructively engage our customers and partners in the conversation without having to control it, rather co-create it? Change is happening more rapidly and complexity is going exponential. The new business model calls out to be more organic, more connected, and more resilient. As in the story above, in the spirit of synergy and coopetition we naturally become more entrepreneurial. We spawn prototypes that can afford to be tested, and can afford to fail. In this co-creation born out of synergy and coopetition, each player’s story stays intact, interacts, and grows in value and potential. And since story is our sweet spot…how sweet it is! So let’s keep the conversation going….Get involved in the conversation by replying below with your thoughts!
Lea Belair is a thought leader in the field of change management. As a partner in the Coaching Center of Vermont, Inc., leader in the coaching profession, and author of Walk on Water: How to Make Change Easier, Lea inspires and empowers those she works with to thrive in change.