| Overview |
Organizations face new and accelerating levels of competition due to several major trends, all of which can be advantages or disadvantages to organizations and their existing competition. These trends include:
Technical
Innovation |
Manufacturing, information, bio-tech and other technologies lower costs, improve quality, reduce dependence on location for customers, employees and suppliers, increase the speed of business, improve decision-making and create entirely new categories of products and services.
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| Globalization |
International telecommunications, logistics and trade agreements introduce new customers, suppliers and competitors, along with different pricing structures and business operations approaches.
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| The "Skills Crunch" |
More complex business operations require greater skills to manage just as demographic trends are reducing the percentage of highly qualified personnel in the work force.
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| The Environment |
Global warming, air and water quality, recycling and waste management require more resources and more attention to the organization's entire value chain.
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To maintain and increase competitiveness, organizations must respond to these trends by changing the way they do business. In practice, this means changing their business and technology processes. Due to the complexity of these processes, this requires collaborative solutions development.
Organizations with higher levels of collaborative solutions development capability are able to make these changes more quickly, efficiently and successfully than organizations with lower levels of collaborative solutions development capability. Organization with higher levels of collaborative solutions development capability are therefore able to compete more effectively.
This is the first major reason why collaborative solutions development capability is a strategic competitive competency.
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| Challenges and Opportunities |
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Business / Technology Communication
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Challenge: Business / IT Alignment has been on CIO's top 10 issues lists as long as those lists have been compiled. The problem extends to all technology, not just computers. Difficulty in communications and understanding between people in business and technology roles is a major impediment to an organization's ability to take advantage of technology innovation.
Opportunity: Increased collaborative solutions development capability is a key ingredient in achieving better business / technology communications. Organizations can gain significant advantage in this area by adding to their overall CSDC.
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Globalization: Multiple Languages and Cultures
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Challenge: Collaborative solutions development in a globalized economy must account for multiple languages and cultures. Process development has a universally understood structure and English may be close to a world language. However, the core capabilities of CSDC are based on mental modeling, which will often be most effective in a person's native language. In addition, different cultures take different approaches to consensus-building and commitment to action. These differences in languages and cultures may be impediments to extending the reach of increased CSDC.
Opportunity: Collaborative solutions development functions that easily translate across languages and cultures can be a competitive advantage in responding to and leveraging globalization.
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The War for Talent
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Challenge: The need to have a more skilled work force is increasing in intensity, as is the associated competition for talent. Existing approaches to recruiting, training, and retaining people are being stretched to the limit.
Opportunity: Increased use of collaborative solutions development techniques and increased training in collaborative solutions development capabilities can help organizations screen and attract new employees and broaden the skills and maintain the interest of existing employees.
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Environmental Impacts
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Opportunity: The environment and the impact of human activity on it are best understood as an integrated system that can be divided into sets of processes. Increased collaborative solutions development capability focused on environmental processes and impacts can put organizations ahead of the curve.
Challenge: An organization's impact on the environment has many facets that may be subtle and far-reaching. As social concern about the environment increases, and as opportunities to improve economic performance through better environmental practices emerge, organizations may find themselves "behind the curve" and reacting to events rather than dealing with them proactively.
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The ratings scales below use a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 indicating "less effective, less able, not as well" and so on, and 5 indicating "more effective, more able, better" and so on.
Using these rating scales, rate your organization on its relative activity in the following areas:
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Use collaborative solutions development to increase understanding and communication between business and technology areas.
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Employ collaborative solutions development methods that translate quickly and easily across language and cultures.
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Utilize collaborative solutions development capabilities in human resource development to communicate requirements and abilities, design training, and expand career options.
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Conduct collaborative solutions development with different stakeholder groups to remediate, anticipate and avoid unwanted environmental impacts.
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