Collaboration with business partners and customers is key to the
future growth of global business, according to a
study from the Economist Intelligence Unit.
IT analysts expect IT directors and chief information officers
to adapt their corporate IT security strategy to support the CEO's
plans by opening up networks and IT systems to business
partners.
The EIU interviewed 1130 CEOs globally for IBM on their views of
the enterprise of the future. Collaboration and partnerships was
the focus for 71%, while 38% of CEOs expected to keep work within
their organisations.
The report stated, "CEOs told us they are pursuing more
collaborative models to gain efficiencies, fend off competitive
threats and avoid commoditisation. Their end goal is to offer
customers a differentiated value proposition."
Jim Guyette, president and CEO of
Rolls-Royce North America, said in the report, "A few years
ago, we were a national company now we are a global company. Our
integrated supply chain must adapt to meet demand in 50 countries.
We are going to have to bring people in from the outside."
IT directors and chief information officers can facilitate
collaboration. "Businesses can use structured collaboration like
supply chain collaboration together with document sharing and Web
2.0 collaborations to drive innovation across company boundaries,"
said Dale Vile, managing director at analyst Freeform Dynamics. The
IT director and CIO need to provide the necessary network,
communications and security infrastructure to support business
collaboration.
Vile said, "Greater use of collaboration will mean IT directors
need to plan the monitoring and compliance and the security
requirements of business collaboration.
The EIU report found that CEOs were prepared to search worldwide
for sources of expertise, resources and assets that could help
differentiate the business. "Finding the right capabilities is much
more important than finding the cheapest," the report stated. CEOs
said that centres of excellence needed to be integrated globally so
that the best capabilities, knowledge and assets could be used
wherever required.
Pharmaceutical giant Ely lilly has developed a business model
based on collaboration, which offers a risk-sharing approach to
product innovation with business partners. The approach, called
Fully Integrated pharmaceutical Network (FIpNet), was used in
2007 in a contract with Nicholas piramal India, where NpIl took on
the responsibility for developing one of Ely Lilly's molecules at
its own expense, from preclinical work to early clinical trials. If
NpIl is successful and the compound reaches the second stage of
human testing, Lilly can reacquire it in exchange for certain
milestone payments and royalties.