“Collaboration is the best way to work”, says actor Antony Starr.
It becomes more relevant in today’s times. In the dynamic sports industry occupying a unique position where fans come together irrespective of geographies, it becomes very important for institutes in sports management education to work together to facilitate exchange of ideas and complement each other’s strengths and identify avenues of future growth.
At SBI, we firmly believe in it.
In one-of-a-kind initiative, SBI Barcelona is proud to collaborate with The Tulane University of Louisiana, in New Orleans, United States as a part of our continued expansion in that market.
In the past week, SBI hosted the team from the university at office in Barcelona for a series of interactions and fruitful discussion covering multiple areas.
Types of Collaboration
The EY-Parthenon report “Why collaboration is key to the future of higher education” lays its emphasis on the specific topic of collaboration between institutes. The report further lays down three steps in this regard:
Step 1: Identify areas for collaboration:
Collaboration can take many different forms and doesn’t always need to be seen as resulting in a merger or acquisition. Based on our survey of campus leaders, the most common type of alliance is around academics.
- To what extent is collaboration necessary to stay financially viable? Is there an opportunity to improve value to students or cut costs?
- What administrative, service and academic departments would benefit most from collaboration, and how deep should those collaborations go?
Step 2: Structure potential partnership opportunities
Institutions choose collaborating partners based less on proximity and more on the importance of shared vision:
- What factors should be used to evaluate the feasibility and attractiveness of a potential partner (e.g., geography, shared vision)?
- Which institution is the best strategic, operational and financial fit for the type of collaboration being sought? What additional collaboration opportunities could we pursue with existing partners?
- How will the collaboration work? Who has to sign off on decisions? How can the two institutions work together operationally?
Step 3: Sustain the benefits of a partnership
Forging a partnership might be the easy task; sustaining the benefits of a partnership over the long term could prove more difficult. Some key questions to consider:
- How do we realize the full potential benefits.
- How do we leverage collaboration to enhance value to students through expansion of services and academic offerings?
To sum it up, we at SBI are proud to initiate the project with such an esteemed university with a thorough and meaningful project. Culminating thoughtful minds on a single purpose gave the participants many ideas to pursue.
We look forward to explore more collaboration initiatives further down the line.
