The power of business collaboration

Collaboration, one of the most vital resources any entrepreneur can have. With most start-ups being run by solo-preneurs getting more skills on a project, through collaboration, has become essential.

The few who have collaborated with other businesses have discovered that it often leads to an explosions of ideas coming from different minds and expertise as well as inspiring results.

This strategy is very popular in other countries and has yielded results that are impressive. The question then comes, what is business collaboration?

However, business collaboration has not reached its peak and is not yet popular among startups in South Africa.

Collaboration -is the relationship you form with other business owners to find ways in which one can collaborate with other businesses- and is a powerful tool for all small business owners, regardless of industry or type of business you have.

Simply put it means to work together or jointly. This system is used by business, big or small, to share products and services within the collaborated space. For example you can have about 10 business owners collaborate.

Services can range from car wash, catering, branding, venue hire, Bed & Breakfast, transportation, cleaning services, payroll and so on.

One business does not have to do all these services when several can come together and refer business to the others.

Businesses will make use of the services within the group to support one another irrespective of price tag.

Other forms of collaboration can be seen where a businesses, for example a product producer comes together and works with a specialist sales and marketing company that can elevate the brand of that product.

In this way they all partner to work together to support, build one another and refer customers outside the group to make use of services within the group.

You will be surprised at how business owners struggle to get information to start and even to operate their businesses.

However, collaborating with other businesses can actually take away some of those early stage pain.

Businesses share the vital points as small business owners. The idea is to join forces and boost one another.

Edith Salimani is the Business Development Director at online management academy Learnify. She writes in her personal capacity.