Collaboration in the Global Marketplace

The global marketplace, with its borderless economy, places increasing pressure on enterprises to deliver products faster and at lower cost. Today, it’s common for organizations to consist of a global workforce representing local and outsourced department functions, and to support a geographically dispersed customer and partner base. The new face of business requires that cross-enterprise and cross-geography teams constantly interact to design new products, support customers or work with partners, suppliers, and vendors. The potential upside is enormous. IBM eliminated offices that were not needed and saved 40 to 60 percent per work site. Hewlett-Packard moved all salespeople to virtual workplaces and doubled revenue.

Despite these compelling drivers, most workers lack even basic tools to compete and collaborate in a global marketplace. Worldwide respondents to a recent Microsoft Office survey say they feel unproductive for as much as a third of their workweek. At a modest $1,000 per week salary, that represents over $17,000 per employee per year, or millions in lost productivity. One of the top three time wasters, according to another survey’s international participants, was lack of team communication.