[...]... goals.” Of course In a business setting, we interact with other entities (individuals or businesses) to learn and make better assumptions about the set of needs and wants we’re trying to satisfy and how to build a profitable business around satisfying that set of needs and wants This is the iterative process of building a business, developing relationships one interaction at a time In iterative relationships... see a clear value proposition, just as each customer sees a clear value proposition in a traditional customer business relationship In the era of collaborative business, every relationship must be thought of as a customer relationship A Collaborative Community focuses on satisfying the needs and wants of each customer on an increasingly personalized basis Thus it requires the entity that builds the. .. relationships (and all relationships are iterative), each relationship starts with an assumption about the needs and wants the relationship is trying to satisfy and how the relationship should go about satisfying them Then, in the actual process of conducting the relationship, the assumptions are tested against reality If the relationship is to endure, whatever works must be kept; whatever is found lacking must... relationships are important in business What we hadn’t appreciated is that in addition to requiring a lot of hard work, successful col- Introduction xxiii laborative relationships require an analytical and disciplined approach Like many things in life, some people have an in- born, intuitive ability to build trusting, win-win relationships both in business and in their personal life However, for the majority... ❘ The Era of Collaborative Business with their customers and other businesses in the design, development, and delivery of the market basket of goods and services if they expect to profitably satisfy their customers’ personal needs Listen to how Bob Evans, editor -in- chief of InformationWeek, a trade publication that made collaborative business an editorial focus, describes the importance of collaboration... know that whatever bright future is possible, the way to work toward that 8 Part One ❘ The Era of Collaborative Business goal is through collaboration Whether we are looking at business or geopolitics, the benefits of, and the necessity for, working across traditional boundaries with like-minded people to achieve shared goals is undeniable BUSINESS TRADING COMMUNITIES In the era of collaborative business, ... collaborative business, where commerce is done in trading communities (what we call Collaborative Communities) built by creating win-win relationships with customers and business partners through a continuous stream of value propositions that help each party achieve its respective goals ❚ In the era of collaborative business, commerce is conducted in trading communities built by creating win-win relationships... practitioners In fact, conventional thinking has so dominated business that it is fairly common to find companies devoting resources to overlapping product lines that compete against one another in order to please the same customer, thus dissipating their critical resources without a clear gain Today’s efficient businesses should use an iterative approach to discovering and satisfying the needs and wants of 1... say this dance with customers and businesses has always gone on And certainly this is true However, what is different today are the profound developments in information and communication technologies that are transforming the relationships between and among businesses and their customers into Collaborative Communities As Peter Drucker said at the Collaborative Commerce Summit in June 2001, The greatest... RelationsWeb, the first and only software that allows you to measure and manage the value of relationship currencies Heartfelt thanks to Gordie Earle of Arrayworks for helping us understand the requirements of the information infrastructure that support collaborative relationships xv xvi Acknowledgments A special thanks to Sonja Ali, who assists us in getting the words out by managing our marketing communications . Process is patent pending by The Rhythm of Business, Inc. The Rhythm of Business is a registered trademark of The Rhythm of Business, Inc. © 2002 by The Rhythm of Business, Inc. Published by Dearborn. for measuring the value of every relationship in the era of collaborative business / Jeffrey Shuman and Janice Twombly, with David Rottenberg. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN. from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America 02 03 04 10987654321 Library of Congress Cataloging -in- Publication Data Shuman, Jeffrey C., 1945– Everyone is a customer : a proven method