Businesses today face increasing pressure to boost innovation, accelerate time to market and reduce costs. To compete on a global scale, manufacturers must keep finding more and better ways to streamline collaboration between globally dispersed product design and manufacturing teams.

Recall the challenge Kodak, the photo giant, was facing a decade ago. George Fisher, then the relatively new chief executive officer, recognized that Kodak had better come up with a good digital camera fast, or risk losing market share to Casio, Sony and 100 others. Fisher asked the Kodak development group how long it would take to develop a new digital camera and they said three years—quite reasonable in a conventional sense. In late 1996, he gave the job to a rookie manager—who came up with a new digital camera in six months and put it into high-volume production to be available on the shelves by Christmas 1997, the same year.

How was it done? The results came through round-the-clock, Internet-based project management and product development teams at several Kodak development centers and alliance partners around the world.While some slept,others were working and handing off results to others in the chain. Modern technology and new concepts of manufacturing alliances provide the answers.

Plethora of tools

Collaborative software is a big thing these days. However, the obvious advantages are still only being bandied about. Without total commitment, from management down to operating levels, collaboration only gets lip service and does not lead to anything more than the futility of remote blame.

Outsourcing collaboration

Recently, I visited Wipro in Bangalore, India, arguably the world’s largest software outsourcing company. While I was there, my hosts took me on a tour of the “Wind River” software development facility.

Wind River is the leader in embedded software, based in Alameda, Calif.; but this was their software lab, run completely within Wipro and employing about 75 to 80 people. The entrance signs and everything inside said Wind River, and many of the employees sported Wind River tee shirts. They have their own management, schedules and budgets, all reporting directly to Wind River headquarters in California. There was strict security, and only someone on the inside could admit us. The computer room was a mass of wires and winking lights, and I wondered whether people knew whether the colleague they were communicating with was at the next desk in Bangalore, India, or in Alameda, California, or somewhere else in the world. It was an eerie feeling.

Today, collaborative enterprises with global scope are winning the game. They streamline end-to-end business and supply chain processes, distribute information across various businesses to boost mutual responsiveness, agility, and customer-centricity.