Collaboration Is Essential In Today’S

1. Introduction

It is argued that �the marketing domain is intrinsically one in which collaboration is not just desirable but indispensable’. However, according to the definition made by American Marketing Association (AMA), �marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders’ (http://www.marketingpower.com). In the definition, collaboration is not mentioned. Hence, why collaboration is not just desirable but indispensable will be discussed and studied in this paper. Here, the author will mainly based on the Tourism Industry and discuss the argument and the relationship between collaboration and marketing. Meanwhile, in order to better understand the related theories in marketing and tourism domain, cases of collaboration in tourism will be cited.

2. Concepts of collaboration and marketing and their relationship

Collaboration in modern business and marketing world refers to two or more parties work together for a shared objective or goal. Collaborative procurement is where the shared objective or goal is related to the procuring of goods and services for the concerned parties. In the marketing domain, collaboration shouldn’t be limited to working with other local authorities but can also include working collaboratively with other public sector organisations is widely recognised as a huge opportunity for delivering cost savings and efficiencies across the public sector. Also, the collaboration in marketing domain includes internal and external collaboration (Larson, 1991; Hamel et al., 1989). The typical approach to collaboration has been to create larger, combined contracts to improve service and/or achieve savings. Collaboration does not need to be limited to within the public sector. It can also include collaborative working with the private sector to introduce new and innovative models of service delivery (Hamel et al., 1989).

Marketing, in general, are the activities all those associated with identifying the particular wants and needs of a target market of customers, and then execute the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, services, organizations, and events to create and maintain relationships that will satisfy individual and organizational objectives. These activities involve doing market research on customers, analyzing their needs, and then making strategic decisions about product design, pricing, promotion and distribution (Kou & Wang, 2002; Kotler & Keller, 2005; Bennett & Blythe, 2002; Bradley, 2005).

A strategy for collaboration allows an organisation to better identify and manage market opportunities, ensuring that the benefits and efficiency gains are maximised. The aim of the collaboration strategy points to the same direction of marketing strategy which is to identify, anticipate and satisfy customer requirements profitability, and then to maximise organisation’s benefits as a business tool. Hence, having a collaboration strategy is essential (Kou & Wang, 2002; Bennett & Blythe, 2002; Bradley, 2005).

On the other hand, it could found that the marketing process includes the activities such as market research and then making strategic decisions about product design, pricing, promotion and distribution (Kou & Wang, 2002). Nowadays, as individual organisation’s and/or sector’s ability and function are becoming more specific and professional, work allocation tends to be more professional. Each department would have its own specific job. For example, inside a company, there will be individual sector takes charge of product design, advertisement or business communication. Outside of a company, there will be individual organisation who is the expert at advertisement design, news and information distribution (e.g., BBC, SkyTv, and Times) and transportation (e.g., Virtual Tourist). Therefore, in order to better execute marketing process, at the same time, indicates that a company or organisation needs to effectively and efficiently collaborate between internal sector and sector, and between external organisation and organisation.

3. Benefits of collaboration in modern business domain

The importance of collaboration to the development of tourism is undoubtedly a factor in the success of any destination. Over the last 30 years there has been increasing interest in academia and elsewhere in the potential of collaboration to create benefits that could not be realised by organisations operating alone. Oliver & Davey (1990, p255) identified six conditions which stimulate organisations to collaborate to achieve shared objectives and to gain more influence and control over resources. These are: necessity; asymmetry; reciprocity; efficiency; stability; and legitimacy.

The term collaboration could be used to refer to the practice of “working collaboratively across organisational and even national boundaries in order to deal more effectively “with major issues that sit in the organizations вЂ?inter-organizational domain’ and that cannot be tackled by an organization acting alone” (Vangen and Huxham, 2003). Dorado and Vaz (2003, p141) claim that collaboration is supposed to increase the resources and creativity and thus the likelihood of successful development and implementation of projects involving multiple organisations.

There are wide-ranging benefits generated from collaboration. It is important to recognise that collaboration is not only about economies of scale (Larson, 1991; Grandori, 1997), but also about the access to specific resources, risk and cost sharing (Contractor and Lorange, 1988; Hamel et al., 1989), learning (Hamel et al., 1989; Doz, 1996) and flexibility amongst others (Barringer and Harrison, 2000). Huxham and Vangen (2000) refer to these benefits as “collaborative advantage”.

First of all, collaboration allows each partner to obtain new skills and new ideas. Nowadays, the importance of information and efficient information management is steadily increasing due to the evolution of new technologies and high-capacity storage media but also because growing market dynamics raise information needs (Larson, 1991) (appendix-case-1). This was mentioned by many as one of the key advantages of a collaborative approach. Many felt that more creative solutions emerged when different sectors cross-fertilized. Also, a collaborative partnership gave them access to the diversity of talent

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