My Perspective – Partnerships with Competitors

Several emails over the past several months indicated concern about issues of communicating and maintaining a relationship with competitors as partners and maintaining stable relationships with employees. Often communication can be a real issue and can be a major reason for a project to fail. Companies doing business for so many years have been use to competing, non-alliances, and adversarial relationships that they seem not to know quite how to establish the proper partnerships, relationships, and alliances with many companies that may have once been, and still may become later, their competitors.

Many companies that years ago provided loyalty to many of their employees know that loyalty now, in many regards for companies, is just a buzz word. Although there are companies that are still trying to provide their employees with better benefits in a variety of areas, there are many that can’t or don’t for a number of reasons.

But establishing a business relationship with a competitor is about “trust” and setting policy and procedures for the business agreements and terms, sharing of information, security and privacy issues, etc. If the appropriate business relationship, with many levels of communication, is not established you should expect issues of communication to be at the forefront. This is also especially important when doing global/international business.

Are there genuine relationships between management and its employees? Where are the real relationships regarding management and its employees? Why has it been so easy to do what has been done to workers (widespread unemployment)? Was it all about just doing business and was this the way to represent increased profits and productivity, or revenue? It’s a different business environment now and to many individuals, as reflected in surveys and on national news, there are no real relationships established or consideration for long term loyalty. What do you think?

Concluding Note on unemployment:

During the current cycle of severe/long term unemployment, as a manager and business person, I realize, and must realize, these are people representing our children and families and a standard of living they worked for. Individuals whose lives were at one time stable but now many have lost not only jobs but homes and families. It doesn’t mean that business don’t have to be addressed (conducted for it’s survival) but if it weren’t for people and effective processes and practices that gets the job done, leading to successful projects and programs: where would business be? What I am saying: Its people, processes and practices that increases “real” productivity, revenue and profits.