Collaboration with Control (continued)
Align everyone's incentives to meet strategic goals People who talk the talk may not always walk the walk. "Unless people understand what's in it for them, they won't truly participate," says Jan Twombly, president of The Rhythm of Business Inc., a consulting firm specializing in collaboration based in Newton, Mass. "Collaboration is all about 'give and get.'" This means making sure that people are rewarded for acting to further the aims of the enterprise in general rather than just their own particular profit. "If a sales person has the incentive to push for volume only, he or she might not be thinking about whether the products being sold are the most profitable," says Viswanathan.
Drive mutual decisions through agreed-upon metrics "Different strokes for different folks" may be a nice management mantra, but to collaborate successfully, all parties must agree to one shared standard of what is being measured and how it is measured. Is it the overall profitability of the business? Is it keeping customer service levels high? Is it minimizing inventory? "You have to think about the kinds of actions you want to encourage and put the metrics in place to change behaviors," says Viswanathan.
Install the right infrastructure to protect valuable data Some types of collaboration can leave organizations vulnerable by providing competitors with insight into proprietary operations or strategies. "When you open up your systems to an external organization, you are taking risks," says Sam Pullar, founder and executive partner in the Cumberland Partners Inc., a consulting firm based in Suwanee, Ga., that provides manufacturing firms with distribution and logistics services. "You must put the appropriate technical controls in place to guard against those risks." Twombly agrees that, "Most enterprises already have security systems in place that authorize certain internal people to access certain kinds of information. With external partnerships, you need to slice and dice those access rights even further." (article continues)
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