I want to find a business partner

The ability to network and build social relationships is crucial for a company wanting to establish a strong sustainable profile.

It is important that you know what you want from your network. Equally important is that you know what you have to offer.

It is a good idea to learn about and maybe even join the networks and organisations operating in your company's particular area.

There are a variety of networking phenomena:

• Co-creation – creating value through collaboration between companies and consumers. GPS producer TomTom has opened a call centre in Amsterdam where employees listen to customers' ideas and suggestions for product improvements. A call centre like this builds customer loyalty – even from customers who actually called in to complain. This information heads directly to the development department and is now the greatest source of improvement and innovation at the company.
  
  
• Crowdsourcing – putting challenges and problems onto the internet, for example through social networks, with the aim of getting an unknown group of people to offer solutions. The reward for the best idea might be recognition or acknowledgement.
  American company Innocentive is a crowdsourcing and open innovation community consisting of creative thinkers who deliver solutions to problems in business, research and product/service development.
  
  
• Open innovation – a way for companies to network where they use external ideas, knowledge and experts. In open innovation, an idea can crystallise into a product, service or new business model at any stage of an idea/development process. In open innovation, companies buy processes from other companies and sell or donate ideas or processes that they themselves are unable to use.