The Foundation of Shared Success Is Mutual Trust That Is Given and Earned.
What does trust that is first given and then earned mean to you in your daily work?
- This is not a philosophical article. Based on real industrial experience, its purpose is to help people in different professions and businesses, regardless of their size, make the most of the benefits of cooperation in their daily work—benefits that neither party should overlook.
- What are these advantages?
-
A micro-business and a large company obviously do not share the same strengths and advantages.
The competitive advantages of a micro-business lie in tailor-made solutions, flexibility, and the ability to respond and adapt quickly. Especially in fields requiring highly specialised expertise, this can make a micro-business an exceptionally valuable partner for a large company, enabling it to undertake projects for which building and maintaining its own in-house capacity would not be economically justified. Furthermore, involving a micro-business can help resolve production interruptions or capacity shortages more quickly, reducing the resulting losses in high-volume manufacturing.
The strengths of a large company are clearly its financial stability, standardised processes and production capacity. These provide a reliable basis for long-term cooperation and help overcome liquidity-related challenges. Nevertheless, even large companies cannot completely avoid issues affecting production continuity. As described above and in the following sections, a micro-business can provide valuable support in reducing the impact of such situations.
The objective is shared, the benefits are mutual, and the way of working together should also be developed jointly so that the strengths of both parties can be fully utilised.
Working with smaller business partners is not necessarily a competitive advantage because they provide the same services as a large company on a smaller scale. Rather, it is because they can offer advantages that, by their very nature, large companies cannot provide in the same way.
For this reason, the terms of cooperation do not need to be identical for every partner. In fact, applying the same approach to everyone may even prevent both parties from fully benefiting from the partnership.
Many of the obstacles that stand in the way of successful cooperation can be overcome with just a few simple steps.
Large companies and their employees (regardless of their position) should not adopt these practices in order to "accommodate the needs of a micro-business".
They should do so because it enables them to benefit from the advantages that a micro-business can offer.
- What Matters to Each Party – and Why?
- For a large company, one of the highest priorities is to deliver its products to customers with the required quality and on schedule, as
higher production volumes also mean that potential losses can be significantly greater.
It places its trust in a micro-business by entrusting not only valuable tools, but also part of its production process—or the rapid restoration of that process—to its partner.
The micro-business earns that trust by fulfilling its commitments completely and reliably.
- For a micro-business, on the other hand, liquidity and the financial reliability of its customers are among the most important factors
because of its more limited financial resources.
It places its trust in its customer by accepting responsibility for the assigned work and, until the invoice is paid, effectively financing the value of its own work on the customer's behalf.
A larger partner earns that trust by establishing internal processes that allow shorter administrative lead times for smaller suppliers, ensuring direct and meaningful communication, and paying invoices within the agreed payment terms.
A micro-business applies shorter payment terms simply because its administrative and financial flexibility is more limited.
As it usually manages fewer projects at the same time, they cannot offset each other's financing to the same extent as they can within a larger company.
As a result, even a single late payment has a proportionally much greater impact on both its day-to-day operation and its liquidity. - These two needs, however, are not in conflict with each other!
These are naturally different operating models that can only create value together if they also take each other's needs into account.
-
How Can It Work Successfully?
Clearly, a small business must also take the necessary steps to ensure smooth cooperation. However, its possibilities are naturally more limited.
It can
• be more flexible,
• provide the required expertise,
• deliver on time,
• work in a documented and traceable manner,
• take responsibility for its work,
• and complete the assigned tasks with precision.What it cannot do is
• financially bridge longer periods without payment,
• or carry out additional administrative work that could have been avoided,
as this would reduce the capacity available for the production-related work itself.A small business—and especially a micro-business—is able to respond quickly and flexibly because its decision-making process is shorter, its communication is more direct, and its internal processes are simpler.
-
A large company can easily benefit from these advantages because it has the ability to
• appoint a dedicated contact person who takes responsibility for communication and forwards questions to the appropriate colleagues,
In return, it gains:
• agree in advance with its small business partner on how the cooperation will work and under what conditions, ensuring that neither party faces unpleasant surprises,
• establish internal processes that allow it to benefit from the strengths of a small business partner without disrupting its own operations.
• Examples include simplified invoice processing below a defined value threshold or appointing a dedicated financial contact for small suppliers.• specialist expertise that is available quickly whenever needed,
• a loyal business partner,
• additional production capacity,
• valuable professional contacts,
• and broader experience and perspective.
-
If a company applies exactly the same cooperation processes to a micro-business as it does to a multinational supplier, it may lose precisely the advantage for which it chose the micro-business in the first place.
Trust is a two-way process. Both parties must first extend it and then earn it in order to build a long-term partnership that is mutually beneficial. However, both extending and earning trust have different meanings in the operation of a large company and that of a micro-business.
Cooperation works best when the parties do not expect the same things from each other or contribute in the same way, but instead each makes the most of its own strengths and opportunities to achieve shared success.