There was time when co-operation was the key topic in business. Changes were slow and incremental and in co-existence was to hang around or just “operate”. As the change of business raise to next level there was need to put some sweat into co-existence and era of collaboration started. As the business life cycles are reduced even to just few months move to a new level in business co-existence is again needed: collapreneurship.
Collaboration + Entrepreneurship
Collapreneurship is a new approach that combines collaboration and entrepreneurship in a new way. It means one step up from intrapreneurship in which entrepreneurial activities take place within a single organization to activities that take place between different organizations.
Application Areas
Collapreneurship approach is needed to specifically emphasize entrepreneurship in collaboration contexts where entrepreneurship is naturally scarce and SME perspective has lower priority. Like in programs or ecosystems that are corporate or R&D or technology dominated or in a SME company ecosystem that is losing its initial entrepreneurial spirit.
Strategic Alliances
In a strategic alliance the starting point is that company partners are willing to invest first to create a business basis. SME companies can then pool their capabilities. On practical level it means customer development (eg. Customer Up) and learning of respective business models combined with activities in business practice.
Innovation Alliances
In innovation alliances the role of an important customer is emphasized. Alliance model has often been used in challenging construction cases. There is no fundamental reason why it could not be used to build even complex systemic businesses including also SMEs. Emphasis should be first on building a customer model (eg. for a public sector organization, major corporation) and then learn of a respective business model. Then in joint efforts partners go into challenges of implementation.
Key Characteristics
- New space for collaboration by organizational actors
- Partners that have deep trust on each other
- Requires joint team with entrepreneurial spirited members
- Minimum bureaucracy during the front end to foster innovativeness
- Start with customer development
Key Advantages
- Business targets can be reached that no one can attain alone
- Development opens a broader opportunity space also for innovative solutions
- Risk is reduced as collaboration is not based only on assumptions
- Pooled knowledge and capabilities of a team raise development competitiveness
Articles
- Collapreneurship – Collaboration the Entrepreneur Way, read more…
- Entrepreneurs – Intrapreneurs – Collapreneurs, read more…
Please, ask me more of Collapreneurship!