Resource sharing is the pooling together of needed resources between a group of entities, for the mutual benefit of all involved. This pooling together allows for all members to maximize and increase their output while reducing costs in a way that would not be possible if each were to acquire the same resources individually.
In other words, if I have $5 and want pizza, I can afford 1 slice if the price is $3. But if I team up with someone else who also has $5, we can get a whole pizza pie priced at $10 which comes with 4 slices. Boom. We just each got an extra slice of pizza and paid less per slice. That’s resource sharing.
Resource sharing, or pooling, is a natural act. We do it all the time, it’s all around us. Societies and municipalities pool resources, mostly via taxes, with the idea that we all have basic services like water and electricity. I live with a roommate so I can get a bigger house and more stuff, and pay less than I would if I lived alone. It’s about access and efficiency.
It’s not usually thought of in this way, but any large company is operating in this model. Once a business gets big enough, it can start to achieve ‘economies of scale’ which is a term that refers to a decrease in costs and an increase in output, due to the increasing scale of operation. For example, a company can cut expenses by buying in bulk, or by hiring their very own accountant, who will certainly bring new ideas and more efficiency to their bookkeeping and budgeting.
Resource sharing is a natural and pragmatic process both in our human nature and in business. But here’s the trick, how do you access all those precious resources if you’re a burgeoning entrepreneur; if you’re a helper, healer, or visionary on a tight budget? It’s not easy for small businesses that need to operate as separate entities from each other and don’t have access to large amounts of capital.
That’s where the idea of resource pooling comes in. If these separate entities could band together and share resources they all need, then each and every one of them can get access to that whole pizza and get 2 slices for less than what it costs per slice.
So what’s a resource? A resource is a thing you need in order to do what you’re trying to do. If you want to make pizza, you need the resources of ingredients, oven, pan, and cook.
There are a myriad of resources that can be shared which are of tremendous value to businesses. They can be narrowed down into these categories:
- Increased Buying Power
- Systems & Processes
- Cross Collaboration
- Expertise & Knowledge
- Collaborative Endeavors
- Time
Increased buying power is powerful indeed. Examples of this include, Software, Programs & Digital Services, equipment, bulk pricing on materials, advertising costs, and to my mind, the biggest of them all, personnel and professional services.
For most small businesses it is not doable to hire all the skilled professionals needed to run their business to full-time hours. Take an accountant, IT expert, copywriter, or any of the other roles necessary to run a business. It’s not likely you’ll be able to exclusively have all of those team members on staff. So your choices are to do these jobs yourself, hire a part-time or freelance person, or find someone who can fulfill enough multiple roles to reach full-time hours.
Those aren’t bad choices, however, each has their issues. Finding the right team member is a time-consuming and energy-draining process. And finding a person who can fulfill multiple roles at a high quality level is even more difficult. In addition, if those you’re working with are part-time or freelance, the turnover rate is going to be much higher, which then requires re-trying and re-training new folks every time another leaves.
If, however, you have 4 businesses that are in need of an accountant, each for 10 hours a week, then suddenly you have hired yourself a full-time accountant, one who now has full-time job security, and is less likely to leave, therefore is able to thoroughly know your business and meet your needs.
Let’s not overlook the enormous time-saving advantage of having streamlined, fully optimized systems and processes that don’t need to be built from scratch and tried and tested. This includes ways of managing projects, templates for marketing, and processes for automating tasks and workflows.
Cross collaboration is an area of such abundant potential. This includes cross promotion, affiliate partnerships, and the potential for customer referrals. Another piece that can get forgotten in all the pragmatism is the benefit of community and interpersonal support. After all, we’re still human beings who need each other in ways beyond just the numbers.
There’s no substitute for actually knowing how to do something, and this expertise can be shared just as much as skills. This includes access to a shared knowledge base, better ways of working with tools, pre-vetted processes, personnel, and vendors, and access to training and coaching.
All of this sharing is bound to lead to some beneficial collaborative endeavors. Possibilities abound for joint ventures of all kinds, such as collaboratively created programs, events, products, or services. Teaming up with others can also help in the ability to expand to new market segments.
Of course, someone needs to be facilitating all of this sharing and optimizing. One option is for the members of the pool to figure out how to do it themselves. However, this facilitation is also a whole separate process and skill-set. Which is where a platform for the management of these shared resources, a Collaborative Hub, as we call it, makes such sense. This is what we do here at Holistic Systems Cooperative.
We find all these shared people, processes, systems, and projects and help package them together in a service or product that serves the specific needs of each business. Holistic Systems is not a separate entity like an employment agency or rental warehouse. We are in the cooperative process, constantly looking for better methods of sharing, exploring what is needed, and optimizing the process of resource pooling.
This may all sound great, but you also might be asking, “wait… doesn’t this mean you’ll be sharing with your competition?” That’s where the fun comes in! That’s where the social change comes in. That’s where we can change the game. This whole idea has to make business sense for it to work, but that’s not the end goal. The big-picture aim is to create a different model of how we work and live and provide for our basic needs and wants. If we can succeed and thrive in a way that uplifts each other, then we’ve really got something.