Have alook at two news recently in top stories.
1) Kingfisher joined hands with jet Airways for cost cutting measures , in spite of being strong competitors
2) UBL and SAB having market shares of 43% and 37% in Andra Pradesh, filing a case against the government of Andhra Pradesh for not revising the procurement price of beer in more than a decade, despite a significant rise in costs and a 300-400% increase in the retail price.
These two and are two sheer examples where competitors are collaborating on two different fronts of first cost cutting and facing effects of liquidity crunch and recession and second against government monopoly.Not only these two examples are case on such school of thought but also various mergers and alliances, Joint venture and other strategic collaborations are part of such philosophy that has actually paid well to the organization.
not only for organization it is true in personal life as well. i have often observed that in education institutes, student who are competitors are also very good friends helping each other in learning and having a helping relation to complement each others weakness or rather imperfection. but then how the question of distinction comes to play. now that the question to ponder here even in case of organizations in such collaboration that one does well and other only is able to pass through. the key to this is the internal culture of organization, and aptitude and attitude of the individual. it is the behavior that distinguish you from good to best even if you have same words to speak as other shave.
So even if you are collaborating to compete remember you have something that is not with other, that is your attitude aptitude and your culture that can give you that cutting edge.
looking this into consideration, the HR of an organization has to make sure that whether its merger, alliance or acquisition; behavior, attitude and aptitude of employees and organization remains healthy. Communication is the basic key for that.
