The Virtual Enterprise concept has made it more desirable, easier and safer for different organisations to work with each other.  So why not?  Many organisations still find it difficult to realise the value of ‘collaborative advantage’.

 The recent CMA Leadership Survey (sponsored by Nortel) found extremely positive attitudes toward Virtual Enterprise (VE) designs but highlighted the differences between inward and outward-looking organisational cultures.  87% of enterprises have flexible working, 77% utilise hot-desking, but only 58% have systems linkages with suppliers and partners.  For nearly one in five it’s not even on their agenda. 

Confusion about ownership of the VE concept suggests that the default management option may fail to deliver the full potential benefits.   The widespread board-level assumption that virtualisation is an exclusively technical topic indicates a lack of strategic ‘whole- enterprise’ benefits awareness.  It also leads to VE deployments that are more protective than openly collaborative. 

It may seem counter-intuitive to share your data with other organisations – particularly if a supplier is also supplying your competitors.   Making it easier for them to work with you is often not fully considered simply because it implies changes in the way we do business that are beyond the perceived remit of systems and network managers. 

The survey suggests that strategically-minded managers might benefit from asking four basic questions about the virtualisation of their own enterprise.  

·         Who has responsibility? 

·         How we define our Virtual Enterprise?  

·         What evolutionary stage are we at ? 

·         How deeply do we understand the benefits? 

All network managers worry about control and security issues.  Many senior managers assume that external systems integration inevitably means that one of the parties must grant network access privileges to ‘outsiders’.  It’s challenging enough protecting networks from our own home-working employees but giving other entities this access might seem downright reckless.

Such attitudes, however, overlook the availability of standardised and secure data-transfer techniques that do much more than eliminate re-keying errors, delays, protocol conversions and reformatting.  Virtualisation enables new business models, easier growth by acquisition and rapid responses to changing market needs. 

At the edge of the enterprise network the ability to collaborate becomes key to competitiveness.

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This article was first published in Communications News, June 2006.