Scenario

You own a bakery caf which has been successful ior the last 10 years. You have opened 3 branches in the Sydney metropolitan area. As your business gained a great reputation in the market, there were several approaches for franchise inquiries. However, you are concerned that the quality of products and services may be affected; therefore, you have decided not to consider the franchise option. Considering your business objective (to increase sales) and intense competition in the industry, you are looking for collaborative alliances with potential collaborators.

As the current production capacity can meet up to 7 times greater than the current sales volume, you will need to find an appropriate collaborator to boost up your sales.

The business has the following objectives for business expansion or sales increase:

The quality of the products must be managed and produced under the main branch supervision.

The products are in very high demand as the customers are satisfied with the quality.

The product know-how must be treated as intellectual property and is not an option to share.

The business considers collaborative alliances to expand its business. The partner business must meet the following selection criteria determined by the business:

- The partner business must have a good market reputation.

- The partner business has an annual turnover of at least $2 million.

- The partner business must be able to accelerate your business sales.

- The partner business must be able to support training for collaborative works.

- The partner business must have appropriate communication channels for collaborative alliances.

Question 1: You are required to develop collaboration plans for team building, technological readiness, team functioning, and communication process. Write a plan for technological readiness and the steps in implementation. You are required to use the following table.

	Your Company Management	The Collaborator Management
Sales Team
Advertisement Team
Procurement Team
Baking Team
Technology requirement
Sales & expenses data sharing

Question 2: Explain how you can improve your relationship with the collaborator.

Question 3: Explain features of methods to maintain and sustain alliances.