Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/978458
62 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2018 (i.e., malls). They realize that they cannot meet every customer need, but with a proxim- ity to many competitors that collectively can, they will get more customers than they would receive at a discrete location. To paraphrase my high school classmate Andy Rooney, "Did ya ever notice there is a Burger King within a stone's throw from most McDonalds?" Two Schools of Thought Collaboration with suppliers, customers and firms producing complementary or even the same products can lead to expansion of the market and the formation of new business re- lationships. There is one school of thought that sees business strictly as competition, where do- ing business is like waging war and one can't win unless someone else loses. Another school sees business strictly as cooperative, utilizing teams and partnerships to succeed. But busi- ness really is both cooperation and competi- tion: Coopetition. Figure 1 depicts a graphical representation of the "Coopetition Web" that defines this model. Blurred Lines During a recent visit to another client, senior management stated that 35% of their revenue is derived from customers who are also com- petitors! That is truly a remarkable number, one that causes this supplier absolutely no concern or threat. I personally believe that the recent re- cession may have taught us a collective lesson, one that has a lot to do with this paradigm shift. A simple way to describe this relationship is to think of it as such: If a customer values your product/service more when combined with an - other's, this is coopetition. If a customer values your product/service less when combined with another's, this is competition. Competitors are a key part of both our micro and macro economy. Competitors offer choic- es, bring new ideas and improvements to mar- kets, help educate customers, and drive im- provement within our own organizations. Ev- ery business must coexist with competitors, so the choice becomes whether to treat them as enemies or selectively as colleagues. At the end of the day, competitors have a single unify- ing goal—they all want more business. While debating this point, a friend recently told me, "There are only so many pieces of the pie to go around." I argued that you can always make more pies. Market share has an interesting way of redefining itself so that there is always enough pie for all. The Hadco Example In a prior life running global sourcing for a large contract manufacturer, my largest and best PCB supplier was Hadco. One day, Had- co was purchased by Sanmina, and word came down from on high that we had to move $20 million of business just because Sanmina was a competitor. This short-sighted thinking creat- ed more problems than it solved; but this was a different time in the industry. Refusing to use a world-class supplier was akin to throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water. Of course, prudence is the operative word. I am not suggesting throwing caution to the wind with an open-kimono naiveté, as there will always be the occasional predatory wolf and sheep situation. However, with a certain degree of trust and diligence in partnering with the right organization, strategic advantages can be attained on both sides. PCB007 Steve Williams is the president of The Right Approach Consulting LLC. To read past columns, or to contact Williams, click here. CUSTOMERS COMPLEMENTORS SUPPLIERS COMPETITORS COMPANY Figure 1: The coopetition web.