DEBATE


COLLABORATION IN ASSOCIATION WITH:


PRESENT: Ged Henderson


Lancashire Business View (chair)


Stephen Bolton Lancashire Business View Simon Brierley


East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce


Gary Clifton Partners&


Stephen Cutler Partners&


Mark Edwards Seriun


Vivienne Gregson Science in Sport


Hamish Hamilton Vistage International


Sarah Walker Active Lancashire


Zowi Whittaker Fox Group


WE ARE STRONGER TOGETHER


Collaboration in business was the topic under discussion at the Dunkenhalgh Hotel and Spa. And in keeping with the subject we collaborated with insurance advisors Partners&Co to bring our expert panel together


What do you see as collaboration and why should businesses do it?


GC: Some of the most exciting and interesting stories I’ve got are where we are collaborating with other businesses to deliver something different to our customers and extending our proposition for a better outcome.


Working with a shortbread manufacturer in Scotland we were going through a resilience review and looking at what would cause its business to fall over.


We identified one important process and started to work through what they could do if it was put out of action. We’ve forged an introduction with a non-competitor business in east Lancashire and they are in the process of putting together a reciprocal agreement.


It will mean if the process fails they can pretty much have their output back up to speed within a couple of weeks by working with each other.


It solves both their problems and enables our client to take a stronger story to their end customers who want certainty of supply. They are able to use that to pitch for bigger contracts. It is opening your mind to the possibility of what you can deliver through collaboration.


VG: We have collaborations with influencers and


sports people, including Sir Chris Hoy. We give them the nutrition and they give us the profile. We are also a science-backed company and we work very closely with John Moore University in Liverpool who do a lot of our research.


Our business had had a situation where the supplier of our protein bars was putting up prices significantly. It would have been very detrimental to our profitability.


It would be quite arrogant for us to


presume we know all the answers to everything


We have another supplier in the UK that makes vegan bars. We couldn’t switch the production to them because the protein bars were not vegan. However, after talking with them we did end up buying equipment from them and we now make the bars ourselves. That was a really quick win.


HH: Collaboration is our whole business model. We get groups of chief executives, business


owners and key executives in a room once a month and that’s all they do. They collaborate.


My view is no one is as smart as all of us. You see people coming in with a particular issue they have been struggling with and they can speak to somebody with no vested interest.


It is for anything that gets in the way, whether that’s a business, personal or wellbeing issue. It is about removing the chatter. Performance is ability less interference. We are all about using collaboration to reduce that interference.


There are some fundamentals. It has to be based on trust. You have to know, like and trust the people in the room. There has to be reciprocity, there has to be a win-win solution.


People must come with the attitude it is a turn up and give exercise, not a turn up and take exercise. And we have a bucket at the door for mobile phones and egos.


SC: We see immense areas of collaboration, solving problems for the customers that we work with. We can’t do everything.


Continued on page 24 LANCASHIREBUSINES SV IEW.CO.UK


23


DEBATE


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68