Collaborative Breakthroughs

The network of specialized organizations supporting the markets are similar to a living organism that is made up of millions of specialized organisms that come together to make a larger organism, whether plant, animail, fish, bird or human they are all made up of specialized organisms held together in a type of collaboration that supports the well begin of the organism.  The business environment has been moving towards a model of specialized partners brought together through collaboration and contractual agreements to support the well being of the business market. This business organism is made up of similar relationships and collaboration of partners and service providers that cannot survive without the relationship and support of the larger business organism, or marketplace.  These relationships are supported through a series of collaborative relationships that both drive the business marketplace forward and the nature of the relationships support the regular delivery of breakthroughs.

These breakthroughs are delivered regularly through the collaboration of thoughts and concepts that can be repurposed to support new features and functionality.  These developments are made possible by collaboration of the specialized partners and because of the increased level of specialization these breakthroughs are able to be delivered at a greater velocity.  In the past, breakthroughs were delivered through hard work, intelligence and imagination of individuals and now these capabilities are produced through the specialized partners in the market collaborating to experiment and deliver the breakthroughs.   Now we have this organism model of relationships that eliminate the friction of collaboration through technology and communication improvements that encourage the collaborative breakthroughs and a greater and greater velocity.

This generates a velocity of change in the marketplace that requires the participants to ‘plug into’ the organism in order to reap the benefits.  This has been a difficult challenge for the larger companies because this model of collaboration is at odds with the larger legacy organizations’ culture.  Unfortunately for the larger legacy companies the have created an organization that does not encourage experimentation and open collaboration because of this culture of command and control.  The effort required to change this culture must come from leadership and the question is not really whether this is done but when it is done.

Collaborative breakthroughs are driving the market organism now and they will quickly leave companies that are not plugged into this collaborative network in the dust. The collaborative network is becoming a living organism made up of partners and their relationships among and across the network in support of each other.  This social collaborative provides the framework for the network to redefine the market in which they are focused through the sharing of ideas and the capabilities to turn the ideas into reality. These networks will only grow based on the needs of the network partners and the imagination of the partners in defining new capabilities and breakthroughs in the market.

These networks cannot help but to make breakthroughs in their capabilities and also disrupt the market in which they are focused.  The methods are driven by the imagination of the partners involved in redefining their own market and these forces are only going to increase the velocity of change and breakthroughs because of the structure of the market.

Market Based Solutions

Third party logistics providers and their key partners are focused on market based solutions to meet the demands and most importantly to shape the market through new services.  This is really a key strength of third party logistics providers and they bring the skills and expertise to the problems to deliver market solutions. This difference in the third party logistics solution model is that the solution delivered can generally be utilized to produce a solution that they can then use across the marketplace.  This model is huge when it comes to moving the market forward to change the expectations and also change the market capabilities to support change demands of the customer and partner. This is a new outcome that would not be available if the third party logistics providers did not have the expertise and the bandwidth to support the demands and deliver market solutions that can be used be customers and partners across the marketplace.

This is very much the same model as modern ERP software and Human Resource service providers.  The key difference between the ERP capabilities and the supply chain services capabilities is the ERP capabilities are delivered through software that is installed in the customer environment while the supply chain third party logistics providers outsource the functionality.  In both examples though the impact on the market is similar; the ERP software has revolutionised business management while third party logistics providers are leading the delivery of market changing supply chain solutions through flexible technology and integration with partners.

These supply chain market solutions would not have been possible 20 years ago when the greatest supply chain initiatives were driven  by the largest players it the marketplace through their own inwardly focused initiatives. During those times the supply chain solutions were focused on the benefits of an individual company and the partnerships were a one-way focused relationship.  The recession broke this model when the large organizations focused on their supply chain for cost savings and reduced staff while driving for cost savings. This provided the third party logistics market to scoop up the experience and expertise and they took this opportunity to focus on their solution offerings and also to partner with other service providers in the marketplace to deliver solutions that are now changing the marketplace.

This is the beginning of a new age of market based solutions that shift the focus to the solution meeting the demands of the entire supply chain market through a collaborative base model that benefits all of the participants.  This model is furthered through the increase in specialization in the market and solutions that in itself requires collaboration and partnerships to build and deliver solutions. The challenges in solutions now are being met through collaboration and partnership rather than command and control.  Thes collaborative practice requires a robust and flexible framework of technology and communications methods that were not possible even five years ago.

This focus on market based solutions put together through partnerships with specialized service providers supports a model that supports speed of service delivery and the ability to select and provide services based on your own specific needs while the service providers are able to focus on a wide range of services that move the entire market forward.  This collaborative framework supports the changing demands of the participants with a lower level of investment from each of the participants in the partnership.

Specialization and Collaboration In The Supply Chain

Over the last few years there has been a rise in the level of specialization and outsourcing in order to provide a greater level of focus on processes and functions that make and organization stand out.  This has increased the level of outsourcing for these functions that can be performed better by a partner that specializes. Human resources and supply chain quickly come to mind as business functions and capabilities that are extremely important to a business and are functions that can be quickly and effectively transitioned to a service provider that specializes in the function.  This practice is growing and flourishing now as organizations realize that their success depends on their ability to deliver and the rise of specialization allows them to outsource functions that others perform better.

The rise of this outsourcing model has been fueled to a very large extent by the ability of the providers, increased velocity of change and probably most importantly, the improved communications and integration technologies.  These outsource service providers have spent years focused on capabilities and integration and this has paid off now for both the providers and their customers and partners. This is especially true in the third party logistics market where providers have spent years consolidating and developing capabilities to not only meet the demands of their customers in addition these providers have truly been shaping the market through strategic development and partnerships.  

I strongly believe these advances in the marketplace would never have been realized without the push from the last recession.  The reductions in labor and other cost cutting measure taken by major companies to weather the recession put in motion the forces that brought resources together and the technology advances drove the experimentation and and changes that are currently disrupting the marketplace and driving towards specialization of the partners in the marketplace.  This specialization is driving collaboration across the partners which in turn is driving a level of transparency and flexibility that is fueling the change.

Change is good and these changes in the marketplace has reach a level where the change is fueling more change and expansion of collaboration and further specialization.  Collaboration when coupled with advances in communication and network technology provides opportunities for further specialization and more change in the market. I find this process fascinating as it grows and expands through the market expanding from the seed of despair from the recession and disruption of lives by many companies large and small and now it is truly taking on a life of its own as the virtual world and virtual relationships take hold and grow.

The market and the participants, partners and customers are at a point now where the change and the process of change have taken hold and now the change and the market are feeding each other and encouraging to grow and expand.  The collaboration encourages participation and growth while the specialization encourages collaboration and partnerships in order to survive. The is the new world order of business and relationships and it is being encouraged to expand and grow into  a force that continues to grow and expand to continue to disrupt the market. It will be an interesting ride that will have many pitfalls and many benefits and most importantly it will be the only game in town.