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Friday, September 18, 2009

Creating Global Teams

Good overview piece, a situation I have seen much of: Creating Successful Global Teams

Must build trust and bridge cultural differences, By Peggy Albright
These days, computer professionals often work on globally distributed teams. While this practice was unusual a decade ago, today even small startups rely on global teams to increase competitiveness. Using talent from around the world lets a company draw on regional expertise, increase productivity and speed time-to-market by “following the sun” to create a 24-hour workday, and take advantage of a region’s economics to reduce investment and operational costs, particularly salaries ... '

1 comment:

Mark Montgomery said...

As is often the case, academia is way behind the curve here. Small businesses actually pioneered the practice, which was then followed closely by giants in outsourcing. In fact it was new innovative companies that developed the technology that allowed it to happen.

And also the case, not much on economics and law here, which tend to influence culture. One thing that has changed, which is news -- prices have climbed rapidly in emerging markets while they have fallen in some sectors in the west-- particularly small contractors in the U.S., but it hasn't caught on yet.

Another huge economic issue rarely discussed is the protectionist tactics in emerging markets -- often subtle-- different culture than west, but very effective -- essentially the message is "if you don't invest locally then good luck gaining real access to our market".

Contrast that culture with U.S. states today and the trade imbalance begins to take a meaningful shape. Culture cuts both ways- the U.S. cultural style is losing outside of a relatively few local giants, that is. .02- MM