What if David & Goliath got together?

Richard Canny is a very smart guy when it comes to cars and especially electric vehicles. He’s been a big cheese at Ford as well as CEO of Think, the funky EV company - he has been both David and Goliath.

So when he writes that the smaller electric vehicle companies and the big car manufacturers should consider going into partnership together we should take notice.

We’ve recently seen Modec go under, and soon Londoners won’t be able to buy the G-Whiz anymore. It would be a crying shame if the most pioneering EV brands failed for lack of muscle.

Collaboration – not competition – is fast emerging as the default business operating system for those brands that are shaping the future. I don’t mean collaboration with consumers (like BMW’s new car share scheme) but producer collaboration (like Vattenfall and Volvo) - what we might call ‘upstream collaboration’ - sharing smarts, technology, r&d to forge new businesses and create new categories.

And when the collaborators are David and Goliath the potential is huge – Tesla + Daimler, AOL + Huffington, Green and Blacks + Cadbury, Unilever + Ben & Jerry’s, Will.i.am + Intel, Aardman + Sony, and not forgetting Vice + WPP (the latter conjuring images of Sir Martin Sorrell at a rave).

It’s the new way of doing business.

(Nick Keppel-Palmer)

Pet Shop Boys were (nearly) right

“I’ve got the brains, you’ve got the looks, let’s make lots of money”

Is collaboration better than competition? I think it probably is when taken as a fundamental business operating system i.e. when brands that share a common belief get together to explore new opportunities together.

What we mean by collaboration as an operating model is a root and branch rethink of the way business actually works – away from a market share driven approach to something based around share of wallet.

Old school thinking:

Define a competitive position and defend it

Grow by increasing market share i.e. selling what you do to more people

Keep resources such as smarts, technology, talent to yourself (see them as a source of competitive advantage)

New school:

Define the role you play in people’s lives and seek out others who share that role

Grow by increasing share of wallet i.e. extend what you do in order to meet the needs of your constituents

Share resources with other like minded organisations who share the same belief system – who share your aims

Adidas + 2012 not Ebay + Skype
Bono + RED not Will.I.am + Intel
Tata Docomo not Nokia Microsoft

Maybe it’s a new way to think about collaboration – a match based on belief rather than capability. A union based on love rather than convenience?

(Nick Keppel-Palmer)