The Obvious (Hidden) Value of the Proprietary Platform

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Volition™ software allows any company to operate using a business model we call the Proprietary Platform. What does that mean? It means projects and tasks within the company are “owned” jointly by the company and by the employees who participate in their creation and operation. Each employee has an ownership interest in a portion of the value created over the lifetime of his projects (or over any other time period specified).

Providing employees with a proprietary interest in the ideas they create and the tasks they perform unleashes a wellspring of creativity and initiative. (See, Manifesto of the Proprietary Revolution) Employees immediately have a stake in the quality, longevity and profitability of everything in which they participate. This precipitates a powerful paradigm shift away from the feeling of merely having a “job” at a “company” toward the feeling of having the enormous advantage embodied in the privilege to use an “opportunity platform” of massive value.

For example, imagine if you, as a complete outsider to IBM, had permission to visit its home office, walk freely about the building, look in any filing cabinet or database for whatever information you wanted, talk to any employee, use IBM’s vast financial and intellectual resources, collaborate unfettered with its partners worldwide and otherwise use all of IBM’s infrastructure. And imagine if IBM said you could keep a portion of whatever value you created while using all those assets. Wouldn’t you feel like you were sitting on the opportunity of a lifetime?

Now suppose you were not an outsider. Suppose you’d spent the last ten years working in that IBM building and already knew the fastest ways to access the information you needed and which people and outside partners could help you get things done. Knowing part of the financial gain would accrue to you personally, how long would it be until you were exploding with creative ideas on how to innovate and improve? You’d be transformed into what we call an “entreployee.” Suddenly, you’d realize that you don’t just have a “job”; you have permission to use IBM’s massive “opportunity platform” for the mutual benefit of you and IBM. The leverage provided by that fortunate circumstance is immense!

This is the hidden value of operating any business using the Proprietary Platform. And yet, the value is obvious. To us, it’s a wonder no one has made this powerful shift in perspective before! Commission plans and stock ownership don’t even scratch the surface of the power of the new, proprietary business model.

The primary challenges of converting a company’s operation to a proprietary model have been met by Volitional Partners. Our expertise in addressing the many elements of partnering and collaboration in a proprietary environment, coupled with our Volition™ software, facilitate the transition to this new, powerful business model. This is the supreme and durable business model of the Proprietary Revolution.

Proprietary Notice: The ideas in this article are those of the author(s). If you choose to act on these ideas it is a condition of the author(s) that you  do so in a moral way; by communicating acknowledgement to the author(s) and  to others. Moreover, these ideas offer only a hint of the further ideas and valuable products that flow from them. Those ideas and products will only be shared with parties who act morally. The author(s) steadfastly intend to always make it more profitable for anyone to use these ideas morally than to use them without acknowledgement. If you request permission to excerpt or reprint this article you will almost certainly receive it.

© 2002 Volitional Partners and Peter N. Sisco