Technological and Cost benefits of building distributed teams.

The management of innovation is changing in all the sectors. Innovations are increasingly brought to the market by networks of firms, selected according to their comparative advantages, and operating in a coordinated manner. Organizations de-construct the innovation value chain and source pieces from partners that possess lower costs, better skills and/or access to knowledge that can provide a source of differentiation.

The aim is to establish mutually beneficial relationships through which new products and services are developed in a cost efficient manner. In short, firms increasingly seek superior performance in technological innovation through outsourcing.

This new model has various beneficial aspects and is being driven by a series of trends forcing firms to re-think traditional approaches to innovation –

-    First, the complexity of products is increasing, in terms of the number of technologies they include. No longer it is possible for one firm to master all these skills and locate them under one roof.

-    Second, a supply of efficient skilled resources has emerged in developing countries, creating incentives to substitute the resources for higher-cost equivalents.

-    Third, different regions of the world have developed unique skills and capabilities, which leading firms are now ready to utilize.

-     And finally, advances in development tools and technology combined with the rise of open architectures and standards lower down the costs of coordinating distributed work.

It is a competitive necessity. Outsourcing involves procuring a commodity asset or resource at the economical price. While outsourcing, a firm involves itself in accessing globally dispersed knowledge, leveraging new capabilities and takes a decision. A firm uses a distributed team model to gain access to capabilities which they possibly think is of higher level and can deliver the work efficiently and effectively. Additionally, the organization looks for the strategic and organized role of collaboration which leads to an understandable pact between the parties.

The concept also leads to major time-saving. An organization may look for months to find and hire an efficient employee, but with distributed teams, they can staff up in weeks if not days, accessing a skill they don’t have internally.

Connecting distributed teams requires the virtual centralization of activity. The benefits of the virtual centralization of activity include easier manageability, a higher level of security, lower costs, scalability, and seamless integration of functions. The directing organization and the team have a shared infrastructure that supports the integration required to make the partnership a success.

We at Syscraft are working to leverage the model of distributed teams for ourselves as well as for our clients to make it happen, with optimum costs and time. This even helps in avoiding Visa issues you may be hearing for some time now :).

Have any queries or thoughts, feel free to communicate.