One school of thought recommends that when advice comes free (the connotation of free advice here and through the rest of this write-up is advice volunteered and not explicitly called for, not a monetary view of free), think twice before you take it. Well, that’s what all of us were taught and that’s what most of us do. Now here is something to chew on - taking free advice is obviously not the same as implementing it blindfolded. Then what is the cost of taking free advice? It is the time you take to understand it and the time you take to evaluate it. If someone finds that far too expensive, it might be prudent to ask what they think they ought to be doing with their time.
None of us can think of an occasion when we had some funds to put aside in our personal lives and did not agree to meet up with someone who had an idea or two on where we should invest those funds to find the best returns. The more ideas, views and options, the merrier. Inexplicably, we do not wear the investor hat when carrying out business.
Just ask the people who invest on ideas if they would find the time spent listening to, digesting and evaluating an idea, worth its while. In this era of carrying out business collaboratively across multiple partner ecosystems, ideation and innovation cannot be carried out in silos. There is nothing new about that thought given that stuff like CPFR (supply chain collaboration) has been in existence for eternity and supplier (read partner) collaboration is fast catching on, right?
Yes and no! The very folks that have made collaboration a reality within business ecosystems by providing the platform and tools to make it work, and I mean the IT community, is where you would find the least partnership in ideation. I know there are a few organizations that have used their partner ecosystems in information and communication technology effectively to maximize ideation and manage their techno-commercial investments towards realization of their business goals, but these are few and far between.
In fact, there are few planned, systematic, voluntary and periodic interactions in the ICT supply chain, where ideas are sought from ICT partners on the basis of business data, challenges, issues and problems that are shared with them. Even where it exists, more often than not, this isn’t initiated where it ought to be. Even where it is, the focus is on the TCO theme and very little, if at all, focuses on the CVC (Contribution to Value Creation) theme. The appetite and intent to ideate, contribute and make a difference is there. And on either side of the stream. It’s time 'the partners' crossed the stream. It’s time they collaborated.
The cost of ideation, to the consumer of the idea, is inconsequentially disproportionate to the potential value to be derived from it! Partner collaboration provides a unique opportunity for the ICT community to drive business behavior and set examples, for a change, than just being the passive enabler. This could well be the long due impetus required in the business outcome alignment roadmap that is imperative for the next era of ICT growth.
You may also find some interesting perspectives on this theme in
Note: The views expressed here and in any of my posts are my personal views and not to be construed as being shared by any organization or group that I am or have been associated with presently or in the past.
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