In our current economy a tightly woven network binds organisations to each other. Almost no organisation is still able to operate fully independent. Cooperating with other organisations is a given. If a partnership between organisations in a chain is to be durable and be able to grow, it is vital for the management of the cooperating organisations to realise there such a thing as an organisation culture.

A recent study into the maturity of online collaboration between organisations demonstrates that in the event of online collaboration the cultural aspect does not or not timely receive sufficient attention. Calculations are made and research is done to determine whether cooperation is meaningful, following which the management involved decides to enter a partnership or not. This is especially beneficial in terms of cutting costs and reducing lead times. In short: collaborate!

However, hardly any attention is paid to the people on the work floor, who after all need to get it done. By closely collaborating with a partner, which involves continuous information exchange, an entirely new context will come into existence. This requires a different mindset and attitude from the employees involved. There is no difference between a new partnership and any other random major change within an organisation. 

This means that collaborating organisations should not only pay attention to financial aspects, company processes and IT systems, but even more so to individual employees, teams, groups and departments. From the start they need to be involved in the collaboration and be able to provide input. Once convinced of the added value of the collaboration the attitude and mindset will also become noticeable in operational matters and offer the collaboration an increased success factor. Only then can a valuable, supporting factor such as collaboration tooling be done full justice and be able to provide a positive contribution to the cooperation.