Collaboration, the key to success

Success is a strange and fragile beast. And because of that, it is sometimes hard to pin down the precise factors that make a business successful. But at Indaba, we know that one of those factors is our dedication to collaboration – one of our values.

It may be a word that is sometimes overused or even misused, but to us, collaboration is what underpins the relationships we have within our team and with our clients. It reinforces our work together - open, in an aligned, positive and transparent way to generate results, to drive performance and to achieve success.

It could be argued that collaboration really doesn’t have much to do with communication as a profession. But for us, it is integral to everything we do.

Thanks to collaboration, we’re so much greater than the sum of our parts. And we use that strength with our clients. Our ethos of collaboration is designed so that they can do more – communicate in more countries, reach more stakeholders, achieve more targets, hit more KPIs. When we collaborate well, we fill in the gaps in clients’ teams, whether that’s language, skills or experience, so they can make budgets work harder. And how great is it when you can lean on someone’s wider breadth of knowledge for a particular project – that’s more than being just a supplier. Collaboration sits at the heart of what we enjoy with our clients – relationships that are not simply transactional.

“Here’s the budget, do this job”, from the client is as far away from collaboration as you can get. And in that scenario the clients have very little skin in the game; you are simply a vendor providing a service for fee. You’ll most likely be dropped if they find another vendor whose price is lower. The client sees it purely as a transaction, akin to buying a coffee or purchasing flowers.

But by working collaboratively and as a true extension of clients, they understand the value you bring to the table. These relationships also lend themselves to better long-term client retention. Our clients value our experience, respect our opinions our and trust our counsel.

Henry Ford, the man who revolutionised transportation with the Ford Model T, said of collaborative working, “Coming together is a beginning. Staying together is progress. Working together is success.” And at Indaba, we agree with him.