Rivals cooperation in pandemic worked wonders, but does that trend hold?

A short quiz:
 

· What is the average time it takes to develop a new vaccine from scratch?

Anything between 10 and 15 years.

. What was the development time  for Covid-19 vaccines?

 A little under a year

Any guesses how that was possible? The speed at which the vaccines for Covid-19 were developed owes much to information-sharing and collaboration among scientists, universities, biotech firms and pharmaceutical corporations. “It’s the positive side of rivalry that can sometimes deliver a compelling advantage,” says Monesh Dange, consulting markets leader, EY India.
 

More than 30 years after Harvard Business Review (“Collaborate with your Competitors — and Win”) argued that so-called “coopetition” throws open new research and development opportunities, the recent pandemic showed once again that such collaboration among seemingly rival corporations can be a low-cost and efficient way to reach consumers. It can also set them up to solve unforeseen challenges. Or plain survive tough times.
 

Look at the alacrity with which FMCG giant ITC joined hands with food delivery chains Domino’s, Swiggy and Zomato along with community-centric apps such as Apna Complex, MyGate, NoBroker and Azgo to bridge the last-mile delivery gap as the pandemic raged last year. The company had also joined hands with logistics player Dunzo while servicing customers through its direct-to-consumer portal ITCstore.in.
 

In other words, if you’re stuck, a careful alliance with a competitor/competitors could very well be in your best interest. So when its own distribution network came up against a wall (read lockdown) ITC roped in delivery experts to get around the problem. Of course, this was tactical but the purpose was served. And who knows? “The ecosystem of collaborations with emerging distribution channels could become mainstream going forward,” an ITC spokesperson had told media channels last year.
 

“The philosophy behind an ecosystem approach is to enable synergies rather than drain them,” says Dange. And in a hypercompetitive world, combining “the best of what each element of unpaired conflicting organisations can deliver together versus doing it alone” is plain smart, he adds.
 

So why don’t we see more such collaboration? Which industries or circumstances are amenable to co-opetition?
 

As it turns out, co-opetition is common in the IT industry. If earlier such cooperation was about building and protecting one’s IP, successful co-opetition today is more about opening new market opportunities. This shift has been engendered by the global democratisation of technology that has, to a large extent, removed the previously expensive barriers to innovation, say experts.
 

Take Amazon and Apple. Their story began in 2007, when Amazon introduced its Kindle e-reading device. Soon after the launch of Apple’s iPad in 2010, the two rivals decided to join hands to distribute Amazon’s e-books through iPad’s Kindle app. It was a win-win: While Apple’s iPad became a more exhaustive content provider, Amazon got access to a bigger market for its e-reader. Such efforts are better aligned to client goals than a straitjacket way of doing things, adds Dange.
 

Although it might take home-grown brands some time to get there, we did see early signs of collaboration during the recent pandemic, though most relate to advertising and communication.
 

A video posted on actor Kajol’s Twitter account some time ago said, “In times like these, the only thing that matters is yours and your family’s health. A soap, ANY soap, is the best way to prevent the spread of Covid-19…”
 

There was also a print ad from Lifebuoy that first appeared in the Mumbai edition of Hindustan Times, which said, “Please use any soap nearest to you. Not just Lifebuoy, but any soap like Lux, Dettol, Santoor or Godrej No 1.”
 

“You may call it opportunistic, but the fact that a Lifebuoy ambassador was telling people to use “any” soap because “safety” and not “brand” mattered, gave that brand a halo that no amount of noise could have created”, says a brand communication expert. That said, “the concept of cooperation is a lot bigger than the Lifebuoy ad,” says Ambi Parameswaran, brand coach and founder, Brand-Building.com. “It would have been real co-opetition if Lifebuoy had roped in the others into a public service campaign on hand-washing.”
 

Then there was Dunzo. Mid-2020 when everything came to a standstill, Dunzo posted a message on social media, doffing its hat to those who were doing the “ride” thing — it thanked competitors Swiggy, Grofers and BigBasket for their services.
 

Following its post, rival delivery services provider Swiggy launched a video campaign, Sukhriya Karein, featuring social media influencers to thank the “heroes who wore helmets and rode scooters” to deliver essential products while risking lives. That advert mentioned rival delivery brands Dunzo, Medlife and Grofers.
 

Will we see more such efforts going forward? Dunzo is non-committal. “We’ve always advocated for an inclusive and diverse ecosystem and we strongly believe each of us has a role to play in shaping a better experience for users. At this stage, we are unable to comment on how we collaborate with partners in our space except that it’s our small contribution to what’s happening at large and we want to use our brand engagement to improve on our customer offering,” says an executive speaking on behalf of the company.
 

“All of this sounds good on paper but business is about competition and not collaboration,” says Harminder Sahni, founder and MD, Wazir Advisors. “Real value is created when you challenge the status quo.” In fact, he points out, the strategy is risky, and might backfire. Corporations that choose to share resources such as information, data, expertise and other capabilities should be aware of the extent to which they are allowed to engage in cooperative partnerships with rivals. There are regulations in force that penalise firms for collusive practices, such as forming monopolies and price-fixing. “What purpose is served when those who are supposed to challenge monopolies are actually indulging in monopolistic practices?”
 

“The obvious risk when rivals work together is giving away confidential information, trade secrets and insights on key personnel,” says Prasanna Singh, who runs communication firms in the renewables and sustainability space in India.

“The key issue is absolute transparency in the terms of trade as was the case in joint vaccine development efforts. As the economy becomes more formalised with more costs becoming common across companies, I believe we will see many more such examples as, for example, we see in telecom (sharing of tower infrastructure).”