The collaboration between the affordable mass-market retailer H&M and the high-fashion house Balmain will surely go down as one of – if not the – biggest collections of the year. Some fashion experts looked down their nose to this Balmania phenomenon, perhaps not paying enough attention to evidences that indicate its extraordinary success was due mainly to the positive nature of a brand collaboration itself as a way to create and offer something that cannot be achieved other way.
Barcelona hosted the fifth stop of BASF Creator Tour, in which a team from Co-Society used different co-creation tools to direct two days of work and discussion of more than 70 experts in a co-innovation process to respond to the challenge of a more responsible food production and consumption.
Collaboration and co-innovation between companies will play a key role for cradle to cradle innovation to take place, as the real payoff of Circular Economy will come only possible when multiple players across the value chain come together to reconceive key manufacturing processes and flows of materials and products.
Creating common procurement centers has been the strategy of small fish to survive big fishes. Much less common are the cases of big fishes cooperating to survive even bigger predators. Nobody could expect something like this just few years ago, but in one of the most competitive markets, two of top five players, Dia and Eroski recently announced they will join forces to gain negotiating force with major suppliers.
Information is the new raw material of the next agricultural revolution. Big Data applied to agriculture has recently aroused the interest of large corporations with businesses in the primary sector, arising no little controversy. The startup Farmers Business Network introduces itself as an alternative more collaborative, democratic and horizontal organization “created by farmers for farmers to put the power of information back in farmers’ hands”.