Learning From Collaboration Within Music Industry

Have you ever taken the time to look at how many people it takes to produce a song and get it out to the consumer, or even just the writing of the song itself? Think of Lennon and McCartney, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, Robert John “Mutt” Lange and almost every artist in the 80’s. The music industry knows it cannot do it alone and the musician is just one cog in a money making industry. This is best illustrated with the average rights holder to a song streamed on Spotify earning $0.006 per stream  (800 stream = a coffee), however with the right people working together think about Tayler Swift’s latest song 206,294,943 streams and counting ($1.2m by the above calculation). So what are they doing that other business could learn from? Does the customer experience need only be the responsibility of the person/company who produces and sells the product, or the collective of all people that work together to deliver that product? Do businesses need to learn to collaborate as the music industry has been for years? The word collaboration is used a lot lately but what does it really mean? “The action of working with someone to produce something ~ Oxford Dictionary”. I do believe the urban dictionary states it much better “The idea that everyone can work together and produce something better than they could on their own with less work.” So what’s missing for businesses to collaborate like the music industry? 1. Rather than a price exercise to source a solution they need to source solution providers that work with them to create products, end to end, that the customer needs. 2. That if they truly want the benefits of collaboration they need to partner with people that are like minded, solutions focused and interested in the best outcome for all the parties involved. 3. They should be looking for people that complement their business not supplement their business. Simply getting someone else to do something you are already doing doesn’t add as much value as getting someone that wants to work on the things that aren’t core to your value proposition however are core to theirs. 4. Trust. Collaboration requires trust. There needs to be no issue with discussing everything openly. Imagine if Mutt Lange had not explained to Def Leppard that they could still be successful with a one armed drummer, or if Brian May of Queen had kept “We will rock you” to himself rather than allowing Freddie Mercury to rock it and make it into an anthem. 5. Understanding that everyone working together to make something is better than no one making anything at all. Outsourcing a pain point in your business through price point only, will ultimately just relocate the pain. If you want to collaborate with people that solve that pain every day and allow them to work with you, then what seems more expensive can make your business potentially offer more value and efficiency while becoming more profitable. Encourage collaboration, with less focus on buying point solutions Doing business differently, with ACIT.