Your Neighbour Is Not Your Foe: It’s Time For Local Businesses To Work Together
Jonathan Dunnett is the Program Manager, Market Insights and Analysis at Venn Innovation.
Recently, I wrote a LinkedIn post that got a lot of engagement. “Unpopular (?) opinion: too many Atlantic Canadian companies are going head-to-head,” I wrote. “Don’t reinvent the wheel: join each other. We need more friendly M&A to grow more critical mass. Work together. It’s an opportunity.”
For some reason, we have this long, built-in “feeling” in Atlantic Canada that “Henry” down the street is our main competitor in the marketplace. By the types of reactions I got from the post, I think it struck a chord (in a positive way).
The reality is, in fact, that we’ve got many fantastic companies here in our region, but we miss asking a pivotal question: “Who can I partner with or join as I build a company?”
Bill Gates asks two key questions: “Who has done this before?”, and, “What can I learn from them?” I have the unique and fortunate opportunity to work with clients across Atlantic Canada, and I get to connect a lot of “dots.” From my view, our historical Achilles’ heel has been that we don’t ask those questions. We don’t ask the logical third question, either, “Who is out there in the Atlantic business community, and what are they currently doing?”
What I’ve seen in the region, whether we’re talking about the next company that is solving challenges in immigration, the next aquaculture AI solution, or even in metal manufacturing, is that we’re not looking at the opportunities for alignment.
Here are a few theme areas that I see, and opportunities exist in all of them:
I’m doing the same thing as someone else is: There are many, many companies that are starting to do more or less the exact same thing as others. Some have been doing it for six months, others for six years: while the approach may vary (usually just slightly) in terms of product, the end customer is the same. So, we have Atlantic Canadian companies fighting for table scraps against each other, instead of looking at their business environment and considering the options. Partnering, merging or acquiring another Atlantic Company is completely okay and we should normalize that.
I’m doing something different than they are, but we sell to the same customer. I see so much of this within our ecosystem. A few years ago, I was dealing with a number of companies that were selling to the exact, (very niche) customer. Despite my best attempts, much to my chagrin, these companies did not see the value of partnering. So many people hours wasted, recreating the same relationships; some were successful and some were not. Mind you, some sectors are better at collaborating than others, but we need all industries to get to a point where we can swallow our pride and use the efficiencies we already have in the region. Paula’s success is not Peter’s failure, and vice-versa.
I’m dealing with customers that could benefit from a solution other than mine. I think we are starting to get there on this point, but, much of this comes to educating the consumer, continuing to grow our ecosystem, being of the right mindset, and taking a consultative sales approach. The best thing we can do for our customers is seek the best solution for them. The best thing we can do as a region is that, when you’re not the right solution, find someone here who is.
While GDP may not be the best measure of economic growth, for now, it’s the leading indicator we have. One of the biggest opportunities that we have as a region is increasing exports. That is a key component to GDP growth, along with minimizing our imports (that is, buy local).
So, how do we get to growing exports? What are the short-term and long-term opportunities? What are the barriers?
I see huge potential for us to move the needle as a region if we begin to be more open-minded on collaborative opportunities. To get there, however, we need a few key things:
We need to teach people to look at the landscape around them. So often, people are not asking or looking at who else is out there to identify those synergies. This is part of what we do at Venn Innovation, as do many other ecosystem organizations. The ecosystem is here to help you.
We need people to be open-minded. Bias, greed, and pride sometimes can be huge barriers. The question becomes, “Would you rather have the whole of a tiny pie or a little piece of a very large pie?” If the latter, partnering and working collaboratively is the way to go.
We need to build trust. Trust is about building relationships that are open and transparent. They take time and effort, but they are worthwhile.
The latter point is where we have to start. We can build nothing without trust. So, if you’re open-minded to the possibilities of growing our region, growing our exports, and creating new and meaningful collaboration opportunities, start with a coffee with someone. If we all open our minds to what we can do together, we’ll have over 2 million times the impact.
Huddle publishes commentaries from groups and individuals on important business issues facing the Maritimes. These commentaries do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Huddle. To submit a commentary for consideration, contact editor Mark Leger: [email protected].