• Cognizant 20-20 Insights
Five Key Focus Areas
for New-Age Collaboration
Organizations need to enhance how they collaborate internally and
externally, adding further agility and synergy into their ecosystems to
tame the digital storm and sail through the rising tide of innovation.
Executive Summary
Social, mobile, analytics and cloud (aka, the SMAC
Stack) have created a new-age collaboration platform. According to an ABI Research study on
worker mobility and enterprise social collaboration, the market for such products is projected to
grow to $3.5 billion by 2016.1 Five years ago, the
Harvard Business Review articulated the need for
a Chief Collaboration Officer2 to unite the house
against the digital storm caused by the deluge of
new technologies and innovations. Organizations
with traditional business models are already
being vanquished by this storm.
In fact, new-age collaboration has brought forth
a new economy, a sharing economy, which pivots
around networks, shared assets and information,
unlike the industrial economy whose organizational and economic components are market- and
capital-focused, respectively. The so-called “sharing economy,” which brings value through access
and networking, is pressuring old industrial
business models premised on the principles of
scarcity, ownership and hierarchy. The growing
popularity of Linux, Airbnb, Wikipedia, Uber, Lyft
and Zopa (for peer-to-peer lending) are indicative
of this model shift.
cognizant 20-20 insights | november 2015
To some degree, the old guard needs to either
embrace elements of the shared economy or
be rendered irrelevant. External information
environments are evolving faster than internal
environments mainly due to a more conducive
open environment for speed of information flow
and value transfer than most organizations’ internal environments.
Many organizations are already leveraging
the social media ecosystem for marketing and
customer support. Some are applying social
networking internally to more effectively share
insights and democratize information, as well as
tear down or convert calcified decision-making
hierarchies into modern “wirearchies.”3 But in
this age of arbitrage, the mere use of a targeted social platform is not enough. It can introduce
change, but to speed its implementation organizations must leverage emerging collaborative
technologies, at all possible levels, to achieve synergy within a program, across programs, across
channels and with all stakeholders who are a part
of the extended organization and external world.
This white paper touches upon key characteristics
and technology enablers of collaboration at five
different levels in an enterprise context.
Collaboration in an Enterprise Context
5
4
3
2
1
Collaboration
within organization
Continuous integration
KEY TECHNOLOGY
ENABLERS
Cocreation
Consistent experience
Informed, connected
organization
Collaboration
within program
KEY
FEATURES
Collaboration
between channels
Collaboration within
extended enterprise
Collaboration with
external world
Shared value
SMAC
Semantics & social platform
Context-aware computing
Enterprise 2.0
DevOps
FIgure 1
1
Collaboration Within a Program
Organizations often complain about ineffective
software development and delivery. Programs
are not delivered according to their requirements.
The quality of the program falls short. Many times
budget and time overshoot the target. To add to
the plight, modern applications are more complex
to implement and often are unable to address the
needs of geographically distributed stakeholders. With these issues in the backdrop, DevOps4 is
gaining popularity. DevOps seeks to address the
core issue of lack of collaboration between the
individuals associated with software development
and operations. The philosophy of DevOps lies in
collaborative software development designed to
bring together individuals across departments
who are involved in different phases of the development program.
Collaborative program execution requires an
increased focus on both people and implementation. For organizations following the Waterfall
model, this could require a cultural shift. For
organizations already following Agile software
development methodologies, the move to DevOps
is more about a gradual adoption of a new breed
of linked tool chain to facilitate further collaboration and faster execution.
cognizant 20-20 insights
These toolsets provide an integrated platform
for collaboration through clear separation of
concerns, process automation and feedback
loops. Concepts such as service virtualization5
and microservices6 have contributed to parallel development of autonomous components by
reducing dependencies and separating concerns.
Using functional programming, business process modeling and model-driven development,
business users and developers can work together to bridge the gap between requirement and
implementation.
Automation test case generation and automated
testing, for example, improve the quality of the
products enabling faster collaboration between
business users, developers and quality engineers.
The DevOps platform facilitates continuous
feedback and collaboration between different
stakeholders across the program. In this regard,
automated release management plays a big role
in making sure feedback is quickly accommodated. The use of DevOps is not limited to the
DevOps “unicorn” (e.g., Google, Amazon, Twitter,
Etsy, etc.).7 Gartner, Inc. expects strong growth
opportunities for DevOps toolsets, with the total
for DevOps tools reaching $2.3 billion in 2015, up
21.1 percent from $1.9 billion in 2014.8
2
2
Collaboration Within the Organization
In the midst of impending digital transformation,
companies are focusing on the organization as
a whole to stay connected and informed and to
enable deeper collaboration. They are making
sure that all sub-units are in sync, moving in lock
step towards the business vision. In building a
connected enterprise, SMAC technologies have
acted as a catalyst.
This set of technologies has significantly reduced
the cost of content creation, distribution and
discovery.9 Organizations are leveraging these
technologies to cost-effectively improve communication and relationships within the organization
by increasing the speed of information flow,
thereby transferring value among the stakeholders much faster. Organizations are not only saving
time but also saving money through the reuse of
assets and expertise across programs. A common
knowledge base with free-flowing, transparent
access of information and a sharing attitude is
delivering faster learning. Google is the torchbearer in this sphere.
As Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube, wrote, there
are eight pillars of innovation on which Google’s
exponential growth relies. Two of them are sharing everything and looking for ideas everywhere
within the organization.10 Google has followed
a culture of share-everything to encourage
exchange, discussion and reinterpretation of
ideas from all levels. Dell, Lowe’s, Motley Fool,
SAP, Cisco, EMC, TELUS, CSC and many others
now understand that social collaboration within
the organization is not a mere strategy, it’s an
imperative.11
To integrate collaboration across programs, many
organizations are using content management
systems (e.g., SharePoint and Documentum),
enterprise social network tools (e.g., Yammer,
Slack and FB@Work) and enterprise search
applications (e.g., Google Search Appliance and
MarkLogic). But the use of technologies alone will
not make enterprise-wide collaboration a reality.
This calls for a shift in thinking among employees.
For starters, organizations must treat employees as partners. They should find incentives to
improve information sharing and collaboration.
Collaborative initiatives should be rolled out to
encourage teamwork. In the traditional hierarchical organization, decision-making is generally
confined to the top level of the pyramid. But to
invite ideas and participation and improve agility,
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decision-making should be pushed down to the
bottom of the pyramid. Employees at the bottom
of the pyramid should be empowered to make
decisions and form self-organized teams.
Amazon and Netflix have disrupted the existing
business models by leveraging smaller empowered groups developing micro-services.12 This
has helped them to improve agility manifold and
outrun competitors. The Amazon.com website
uses more than hundreds of micro-services to
build a webpage.13 Based on strong operational
collaboration and robust architectural style, this
level of integration is unprecedented.
Collaboration Between Channels
3
Communication channels play a pivotal role
in collaboration. It can give the organization a
much- coveted “Two-Second Advantage.”14 The
quality of decision-making and judgment depends
on timely information coursing through myriad
communication channels, received via multiple
devices. But the multiple devices and channels
should not create complexities or confusion.
Instead, emerging technologies should be leveraged to fit collaboration naturally into the flow of
work. The end user should experience consistent
behavior across multiple devices. Seamless interactions across channels and provisioning of the
right information to the right place at the right
time and in the right context are the two pillars of
effective communication. Winning organizations
are leveraging real-time
technologies not only for Winning organizations
real-time system integraare leveraging realtion but also for content
sharing, peer-to-peer as time technologies
well as multiparty instant not only for real-time
messaging, and audio-vidsystem integration
eo conferencing.
but also for content
With existing technology,
sharing, peer-to-peer
one can click to call using
the Web without a hand- as well as multiparty
held device. Using the call instant messaging,
handoff feature, one can
and audio-video
switch from a desk phone
to the mobile phone and conferencing.
vice versa. Using the
“single number reach” capability phone, desktop or
mobile devices can be linked to the same number
as a single point of contact. And based on context
(i.e., location or status), a call can be routed to
the appropriate device, automatically. Platforms
such as WebEx and LiveMeeting enable content
3
sharing, multiparty instant messaging, audio and
video conferencing under one platform. As of
recently, Microsoft’s Surface Hub initiative is yet
another player in the area of unified communication. The standard messaging protocol, Extensible
Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), is a key
enabler. By deploying an XMPP-based solution, an
organization will have the ability to extend instant
messaging to external partners and customers.
Collaboration Within
the Extended Enterprise
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The cocreation of solutions is shifting gears.
Organizations are collaborating more closely with
their suppliers, vendors and other stakeholders
that are a part of their extended enterprises to
invent new services, solutions and products that
solve large business problems. The invention of
IA-64 was a first of its kind where Intel brought
together technology suppliers, software developers, investors and end users to create the next
generation of 64-bit microprocessors.15
With the passage of time, products have become
more complex and the product ecosystem has
expanded. Take Android, for example. More than
18,796 distinct Android devices in the market
are built on the Android Operating System.16
Worldwide, 71% of around 2.3 million developers
are working on the Android platform.17 Ensuring
that every stakeholder
Organizations are is on the same page is
to a successful
collaborating more critical
rollout of a new service,
closely with their platform or solution. It
suppliers, vendors and is equally important
to provide access for
other stakeholders shared
assets at the
that are a part of their right time. Microsoft,
extended enterprises for example, is positioning Windows, Azure
to invent new services, and
Office as its three
solutions and products key platforms on which
that solve large developers can collaborate to build new
business problems. solutions.
The reduced cost of sharing information has
enabled organizations to extend their collaboration boundaries with their stakeholders.
Platforms such as Tibbr18 accelerate work completion, connecting people and enabling content
sharing, discussions, task assignments and application development. Such systems have brought
employees, customers and partners under the
same platform.
cognizant 20-20 insights
Another important aspect in collaboration is standardization at different levels. Standardizations
help integrate platforms across organizations
or industries for common digital initiatives. New
standards are emerging in the form of ontologies
such as schema.org and GoodRelations. Schema.
org, sponsored by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and
Yandex, “is a collaborative, community activity
with a mission to create, maintain and promote
schemas for structured data on the Internet, on
webpages, in e-mail messages, and beyond.”19
It has made information discovery much easier
and more effective through semantic search and
linked data.
GoodRelations is a vocabulary for describing the
semantics of products, associated services and
other components related to e-commerce. More
than 10,000 companies including Google, Yahoo
and BestBuy use it.20 It has enabled quicker integration between product developers, sellers,
marketers and reviewers. (For more on this topic,
please read our white paper “Semantic Enterprise:
A Step Toward Agent-Driven Integration,” which
discusses the role of semantic ontologies and
technologies in enterprise integration.) Open
Container Project is another such recent collaborative initiative in which more than 20 of the
biggest names in technology, including Amazon,
VMware, Docker, Google, Microsoft and Red Hat
teamed up to establish container standards and
specifications.21
Collaboration with the External World
Organizations are already leveraging social
media to enhance and extend customer service
and receive feedback and product/service ideas.
They are communicating with the external world
to build a more trustworthy relationship that
extends beyond single transactions. And they are
using social analytics to gain insights and are integrating social platforms within the value chain.
For example, Ford has created FordSocial22 to
share customer experiences and factor in customer feedback. American Express has reinforced
its image as a partner for small business owners
by helping such owners connect with each other
through its OPEN Forum.23 Paint and car companies as well as insurers have created situational
Facebook apps on the occasion of Holi, the Indian
festival of colors, to promote their brand by striking an emotional chord with fans.24
In the modern era of digitization, a key focal point
is to bring economic value through sharing and
collaboration. A company can enable employees
4
5
to communicate with the external world to build
more trustworthy relationships. Organizations
can provide platforms for external communities
to collaborate on marketing and advocacy initiatives. Crowdsourcing is similarly redefining
business. Wikipedia has put private traditional
encyclopedia companies out of business through
the art of knowledge crowdsourcing. reCAPTCHA
innovatively used crowdsourcing techniques to
digitize millions of books. Collaboration with the
external world is more than just utilizing Twitter
or Facebook; it is more about identifying how a
social layer and collaboration with the external
world can help improve IT and business processes.
Looking Forward
In this new shared economy, it’s important for
organizations to put more focus on collaboration
as business dynamics and technologies change.
Organizations need not only a dedicated suborganization working on collaboration but this
group must be organized to maintain focus and
balance at the different levels of collaboration
discussed in this paper. This will ensure synergy
throughout the entire value chain. Organizations
need to cultivate a culture of sharing by adopting
wirearchies, motivating stakeholders and leveraging emerging technologies.
To stay competitive, however, they must balance
their needs with budgetary limitations. The benefit of collaboration may reside at different levels.
Taking this approach, the opportunities are seemingly endless, but unless organizations embrace
a more innovative approach, the benefits of
collaboration are difficult to achieve. The basic
need remains to stay connected in order to share
assets, skills, ideas and
time across various levels If the balance is not
of the extended enterprise. maintained between
The need can be assessed
by measuring the gaps internal and external
in
knowledge-sharing, collaboration, the
assets and skills reuse and gap between demand
stakeholder participation.
Shareholder feedback can and supply will keep
also illuminate areas of accelerating, leading
improvement.
to significant hurdles.
Last but not least, the
effectiveness of a program, timeliness of delivery
and level of stakeholder engagement with respect
to the five levels of collaboration can all help to
further this endeavor. It is also worth noting that
striking a balance between internal and external collaboration is critical for ensuring that new
opportunities to innovate, coupled with feedback
from external channels, are harnessed quickly
and effectively. If the balance is not maintained
between internal and external collaboration, the
gap between demand and supply will keep accelerating, leading to significant hurdles.
Once the gaps or needs are identified, the effectiveness of collaboration at each level can be
improved through proper provisioning of technologies, campaigns, training or awareness
programs, processes and organizational changes.
Footnotes
1
“Freemium Cloud Solutions Mobilize Enterprise Social Collaboration Market toward $3.5 Billion
by 2016,” December 2011, ABI Research, https://www.abiresearch.com/press/freemium-cloud-solutionsmobilize-enterprise-socia/.
2
Morten T. Hansen and Scott Tapp, “Who Should be Your Chief Collaboration Officer?,” Harvard Business
Review, October 2010.
3
What Is Wirearchy?, http://wirearchy.com/what-is-wirearchy/.
4
DevOps is an approach to sofware development that is focused on streamlined communication, collaboration, integration, automation (of testing as well as coding) and measurement of cooperation
between software developers and other IT functions. The term was popularized through a series
of “DevOps Days” starting in 2009 in Belgium. Since then, DevOps Days conferences have been
held in many countries worldwide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DevOps). For more, read our white
papers, “How DevOps Drives Real Business Growth,” http://www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/
How-DevOps-Drives-Real-Time-Business-Growth.pdf, and “DevOps Best Practices Combine Coding
with Collaboration,” http://www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/DevOps-Best-Practices-CombineCoding-with-Collaboration.pdf.
5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_virtualization.
cognizant 20-20 insights
5
6
Pattern: Microservices Architecture, http://microservices.io/patterns/microservices.html.
7
Gene Kim, “How We Can Help DevOps Cross The Chasm,” March 2014, http://devops.com/2014/03/11/
howwecanhelpdevops/.
8
“Gartner Says By 2016, DevOps Will Evolve From a Niche to a Mainstream Strategy Employed by 25
Percent of Global 2000 Organizations,” Gartner, http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2999017.
9
The SMAC Code, CII Connect 2013, https://www.kpmg.com/IN/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/
Documents/The-SMAC-code-Embracing-new-technologies-for-future-business.pdf.
10
Susan Wojcicki, “The Eight Pillars of Innovation,” July 2011 https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/
8-pillars-of-innovation.html.
11
Jacob Morgan, “The 12 Habits Of Highly Collaborative Organizations,” Forbes, July 2013.
12
Dave Gray, The Connected Company, O’Reilly, August 2012.
13
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_virtualization.
14
Vivek Ranadive and Kevin Maney, “The Two-Second Advantage How: We Succeed by Anticipating the
Future — Just Enough,” September 2011.
15
G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon, Intel 64 Fund, Harvard Business School, May 2000, http://www.hbs.
edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=27177.
16
There are 18,796 distinct Android devices, according to OpenSignal’s latest fragmentation report, August
2014, http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2014/08/21/18796-different-android-devices-according-opensignalslatest-fragmentation-report/.
17
Developer Economics Q1 2014: State of the Developer Nation, February 2014, http://www.visionmobile.
com/product/developer-economics-q1-2014-state-developer-nation/.
18
http://www.tibbr.com/.
19
https://schema.org/.
20
“GoodRelations, The Web Vocabulary of E-Commerce,” http://www.heppnetz.de/projects/goodrelations/.
21
http://www.opencontainers.org/.
22
https://social.ford.com/content/fordsocial/en/home-page.html.
23
https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/explore/.
24
Prasant Naidu, “Eight Facebook Campaigns That Splashed Colours On Holi,” http://lighthouseinsights.in/
eight-facebook-campaigns-for-holi.html/.
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About the Author
Kamales Mandal is an Enterprise Architect within Cognizant’s Global Technology Office. He has over 15
years of experience in diverse walks of enterprise application development, enterprise integration and
IT consulting and has worked with major enterprises across North America, Australia, UK and Latin
America in the retail, government, healthcare and financial domains. Kamales has authored multiple
papers and is the mastermind and key architect of an emerging semantic technology-based, modeldriven consulting platform, ACE (analyze.consult.execute). He can be reached at Kamales.Mandal@
cognizant.com.
About Cognizant
Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, dedicated to helping the world’s leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in
Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry
and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work. With over
100 development and delivery centers worldwide and approximately 219,300 employees as of September 30, 2015,
Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked
among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com or follow
us on Twitter: Cognizant.
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