Collaborative Guidelines Support

The collaborative guidelines support can be broken into two phases;  initial development and then on-going support.  Your collaborative guidelines must start from the perspective of the initial network members.  This is your opportunity to begin the collaborative process by developing the guidelines with your network partners.  The result of these initial efforts will be documented and agreed guidelines to provide the framework for the partners to work together.  The on-going support activities will then provide the continuing review and improvements to the guidelines based on the changing priorities of the network, the partners and the customers along with the changing members of the network.  

Take this opportunity when starting your collaborative network to collect and document member objectives, values and reasons for joining the network.  This provides a great opportunity to not only understand member objectives and values but also to build the relationships that will stabilize and support the collaborative network going forward.  This is where you will first be given the opportunity to develop the partnerships that will support and carry your network forward to sustainable, long term success.  This initial opportunity provides a chance to also identify and embrace community leaders.  These leaders are also important to drive the community forward to success.  

The collaborative community requires that leadership be shared and agreed upon, you cannot simply start a community with a pre-ordained leader.  Community members must be given the opportunity and then encouraged to provide guidance and leadership in managing the community.  The most important first step in identification of leaders is communication and the most important action in this communication is the ability to listen and then encourage participation.  The leaders of the community will be the members that are the best listeners and that encourage participation of all of the members.  I think that encouraging participation is a key trait of successful collaborative leaders.

This participation encouragement builds the community and one of the results of building a strong community is the value and benefits returned to the community as a whole.  The strength and value returned to the community then provide the reason and even the need to grow the community partner network to support the new and changing demands of the community customers.  This cycle of growth depends on the participation of the community and then the participation of the community depends a great deal on the guidelines and encouragement of the community members.  This nature of collaboration and participation requires leaders to step up from the members based on their ability to encourage participation.  This participation then provides the support required to maintain robust and beneficial guidelines.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Collaborative Partner Guidelines

A collaborative network must define partner guidelines and principles that will both support the partner network and provide the methods to manage the partner network.  These principles and guidelines must focus on meeting the needs of the partners in achieving value over the long term.   The key value of the network is that benefits can be more stable over a longer period of time and the underlying costs of achieving these long term benefits are shared across the network.  I am very careful to use the term network because it defines the how the group will be managed in a way that is inclusive of the objectives of all of the partners and not just one or two.  This foundation is important to the long term success of the collaborative network.  

The guidelines then provide the framework to interact with the other partners and provides a means to arbitrate differences in opinion.  These are both important  factors in both building the network and also maintaining the network.  It is unreasonable to believe that there will never be a difference of opinion with all of the interactions between all of the partners.  It is very important to the success of the network that each partner, or member, of the network clearly understand these guidelines and framework for interaction.  These partner guidelines then are followed and even policed by the network partners to ensure fair and unbiased treatment in the network proceedings and actions.  In addition, defining these guidelines up front, and even more important obtaining a formal acceptance of the guidelines by each member when the enter the network is important to the success of the guidelines and the strength of the framework.

This is not to say that everyone in the network will realize the same level of benefits for all of the objectives and all of the time.  Due to the fact that the level of benefits will fluctuate, it is even more important that you have clear guidelines defined to ensure that each network partner understands the objectives and has had a chance to influence and accept the direction.  It is important that the network truly collaborates in execution and delivery of the objectives, but collaboration does not mean that everyone must agree, or that everyone will benefit at the same level from each of the objectives.  The important aspect is that every member has the opportunity to participate in the decision making process and especially the prioritization process.  

Each collaborative network must first define the principles and guidelines when initially starting the network and this must be a group exercise that includes all of the partners.  Each network is different and because of this there are different roles and different priorities that are important to the network.  The guidelines must start from the perspective of the initial network members and then as new members join the network the guidelines must be reviewed for any modifications or improvements based on the input from new members.    

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Collaborative Network Maintenance

Your supply chain network will expand and contract based on my different actions and reactions to the events and objectives of the entire collaborative network.  This expansion and contraction of the network membership and participation can be viewed almost as the network breathing and living.  The supply chain partners in the network participate in the collaborative community based on the overall and long term benefits that they can realize from the community.  The community will be the driving factor for this expansion and contraction in participation, there is no one leader of the community that drives the direction and the objectives of the community, the key driving factor in the community is the customer members and their desires.  

You must remember this foundation principle in order for the community as a whole, and as a result each member of the community and extended network to be successful.  The collaborative community is a social organism that lives through the benefits of all members of the community.  The driving, or lead, factor in this drive is the end customer of the community.  The supply chain network are contributing members to the support of the customers’ demands.  This extended supply chain network must though also gain a benefit in order to participate in this community.  The strength of the community and a key factor in participation is the benefits and value to the members of the participation, obviously.  These benefits and value achieved as the results of the community can be greater and more stable as a result of this network working together as a community.

The members of this community must be assured of the continued value that will be delivered by the community.  Even more important than the overall value achieved through the community is that this value must be fairly distributed across the network rather than focused on any one partner in the network.  So the maintenance of this network partnership and the community as a whole must apply to all of the members.  It is not necessary that this sharing of benefits be equal across all partners in the network, however it is necessary that the benefits be shared fairly based on the participation and value provided by the partners.  This will cause the expansion and contraction of participation by the members.

The maintenance of the partnerships must focus on meeting the needs of the partners in achieving value over the long term.  While everyone would like to benefit 100% of the time, I think that members of the network understand that in some functions the value returned will be greater than other functions.  The benefit of membership in the network is that these benefits can be more stable over a longer period of time and the underlying costs of achieving these long term benefits are shared across the network.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?