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Develop Your Company’s Cross-Functional Capabilities

Harvard Business Review

Instead, our interviews found a willingness to let organizational forms and structures evolve naturally, developing in line with the identity of the enterprise. On the other hand, they are set up as cost centers and service bureaus, mandated to meet the needs of all their constituents as rapidly as possible under the ceiling of their budget.

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Shadow IT Is Out of the Closet

Harvard Business Review

Departments can automate a business process in the time it would take to enter IT's development pipeline. CEOs remain reluctant to invite CIOs to the executive table, insisting that IT is a cost center, not the innovation incubator it could be. Shadow IT has been freshly-labeled "departmental IT.".

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The First Step to Fixing U.S. Manufacturing

Harvard Business Review

manufacturers do source from domestic suppliers, they tend to regard them purely as a cost center. Past work by McKinsey found that inefficiencies in manufacturer-supplier interactions add up to roughly 5% of development, tooling, and product costs in the auto industry. Even when large U.S.

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Charlie Ackerman on Winning A World in Flux

HR Digest

And if not, what are the ways and means of creating a culture where employees are united by curiosity, knowledge, innovation and a shared sense of purpose. The HR Digest: What is Bosch’s secret sauce to being recognized as one of the “Best Workplaces for Innovators?”. Bosch takes great pride in its Business Resource Groups (BRGs).

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A Kodak Moment to Reconsider the Value of IT

Harvard Business Review

High-value functions such as infrastructure development and database administration were retained; others, including PCs, networks, and mainframes, were outsourced. But surveys show that more than 25% of firms still think of IT as a cost center, 53% of CIOs' time is focused on cost control, and 54% of companies outsource their IT services.

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Bridging the Gap Between IT and Your Business

Harvard Business Review

The business complains that IT doesn’t understand the business, consistently overpromises and under-delivers, and slows innovation. Both sides must acknowledge the mistakes of the past, resolve not to repeat them, and develop the courage to speak up. It is time to put a stop to this. Find common ground on medium-term issues.

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People Are Not Cogs

Harvard Business Review

They outperform their industry because they've figured out how to enable the key asset of the new economy: scalably leverage many people's contributions, including the app developers eager to piggyback on the industry's most attractive devices. Nilofer Merchant is a corporate advisor and speaker on innovation methods.

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