The change in the patterns of work and composition of teams in global firms need not be limited to complex software-intensive development projects. This transformation of how work is done cuts across business functions and industries...
As a result of its early exposure to global resources in the software domain, technology firms may have an advantage in leading others in adapting innovative patterns of work.
For example, let us consider the collaboration between Lenovo (the Chinese MNC in the personal computer business) and Ogilvy & Mather (O&M), the advertising wing of the media group WPP. Lenovo and O&M have moved their marketing services to a global hub in Bangalore. A team of around 85 employees (20 representing Lenovo and 65 representing O&M) in this marketing hub in India is connected to the marketing staff of Lenovo and O&M in 60 countries around the globe.
This experiment challenges the traditional belief that branding and advertising activities are best addressed at each local market and location. These activities were always considered country and/ or culture specific. The Lenovo experiment shows that branding and advertising activities can be disaggregated and that all elements need not be culture specific. In fact, some of the culture-specific activities may be better executed from a central hub in a remote location based on the collective knowledge and access to talent. Further, this approach may reduce the redundancy and wastage of creative effort.
This concept of a central hub for marketing and branding activities emerged as Lenovo was faced with redundancy in processes and activities across the global operations that it inherited from IBM. The key skills in a typical branding and advertising campaign involve strategic planners, client relationship managers, and the creative team that brings new ideas. In the case of Lenovo, these skills were distributed and duplicated globally (a legacy of its acquisition of the PC business from IBM).
The company consequently centralized these activities in its hub in Bangalore and established discipline in workflows and business processes through appropriate systems. A request for creative work from Paris thus is forwarded to the group in India working on the European market.
Image: The latest Lenovo notebook model is shown at a computer shop in Hong Kong. | Photograph: Samantha Sin/AFP/Getty Images
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