What is Foreign Collaboration? Definition, Meaning, Examples

Definition of Foreign Collaboration

In general, the definition of foreign collaboration can be stated as follows.

“Foreign collaboration is an alliance incorporated to carry on the agreed task collectively with the participation (role) of resident and non-resident entities.”

Alliance is a union or association formed for mutual benefit of parties.

Foreign collaboration is such an alliance of domestic (native) and abroad (non-native) entities like individuals, firms, companies, organizations, governments, etc., that come together with an intention to finalize a contract on some tasks or jobs or projects.

In finance, the definition of foreign collaboration can be specified as follows.

“Foreign collaboration includes ongoing business activities of sharing information related to financing, technology, engineering, management consultancy, logistics, marketing, etc., which are generally, offered by a non-resident (foreign) entity to a resident (domestic or native) entity in exchange of cheap skilled and semi-skilled labour, inexpensive high-quality raw-materials, low cost hi-tech infrastructure facilities, strategic (favourable) geographic location, and so on, with an approval (permission) from a governmental authority like the ministry of finance of a resident country.”

Foreign collaboration is thus an alliance (a union or an association) formed for mutual benefit of collaborating parties.

Meaning of Foreign Collaboration

The meaning of foreign collaboration is depicted in the following chart.

Following important points convey the meaning of foreign collaboration:

1. Foreign collaboration is a mutual co-operation between one or more resident and non-resident entities. In other words, for example, an alliance (a union or an association) between an abroad based company and a domestic company forms a foreign collaboration.
2. It is a strategic alliance between one or more resident and non-resident entities.
3. Only two or more resident (native) entities cannot make a foreign collaboration possible. For its formation and as per above definitions, it is mandatory that one or more non-resident (foreign) entities must always collaborate with one or more resident (domestic) entities.
4. Before starting a foreign collaboration, both entities, for example, a resident and non-resident company must always seek approval (permission) from the governmental authority of the domestic country.
5. During an ongoing process of seeking permission, the collaborating entities prepare a preliminary agreement.
6. According to this preliminary agreement, for example, the non-resident company agrees to provide finance, technology, machinery, know-how, management consultancy, technical experts, and so on. On the other hand, resident company promises to supply cheap labour, low-cost and quality raw-materials, ample land for setting factories, etc.
7. After obtaining the necessary permission, individual representative of a resident and non-resident entity sign this preliminary agreement. Signature acts as a written acceptance to each other's expectations, terms and conditions. After signatures are exchanged, a contract is executed, and foreign collaboration gets established. Contract is a legally enforceable agreement. All contracts are agreements, but all agreements need not necessarily be a contract.
8. After establishing foreign collaboration, resident and non-resident entity start business together in the domestic country.
9. Collaborating entities share their profits as per the profit-sharing ratio mentioned in their executed contract.
10. The tenure (term) of the foreign collaboration is specified in the written contract.

Examples of Foreign Collaboration

Some prominent examples of foreign collaboration are depicted below.

The examples of foreign collaboration between an indian and abroad entity:

1. ICICI Lombard GIC (General Insurance Company) Limited is a financial foreign collaboration between ICICI Bank Ltd., India and Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., Canada.
2. ING Vysya Bank Ltd. is a financial foreign collaboration formed between ING Group from Netherlands and Vysya Bank from India.
3. Tata DOCOMO is a technical foreign collaboration between Tata Teleservices from India and NTT Docomo, Inc. from Japan.
4. Sikkim Manipal University (SMU) from India runs some academic programs through an educational foreign collaboration with abroad universities like Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine from UK, Loma Linda and Louisiana State Universities from USA, Kuopio University from Finland, and University of Adelaide from Australia.

Objectives of Foreign Collaboration

The objectives of foreign collaboration are listed in the following image.

The main intention or prime goal or objective of foreign collaboration is to:

1. Improve the financial growth of the collaborating entities.
2. Occupy a major market share for the collaborating entities.
3. Reduce the higher operating cost of a non-resident entity.
4. Make an optimum and effective use of resources available in the resident entity's country.
5. Generate employment in the resident entity's country.