Growing: Co-opetition

The Strategic (and Smart) Business of Collaboration

There’s nothing like a swift economic crash to force business owners to immediately go into crisis-management mode. All businesses have scaled back spending, increased business development efforts and have continues of boot strapping to ride out the storm. From times like these come the adage, “never waste a crisis,” and nothing could be truer.

A year ago the business environment was overflowing with opportunity. Now most businesses have experienced decreased profits, increased pressure from delayed payments, reduced or eliminated credit, loss of customers and overall contracting. However, in light of such misfortune, a greater opportunity exists. This requires a shift in thought process. Co-opetition is a counter-intuitive method of practicing business. It happens when you, recognize another business with a similar value proposition. It requires reaching out to another business with a historical competitive advantage and working together to gain market share as partners. (more…)

8 Comments August 7, 2009