Various studies indicate that there are four characteristics that are in demand within a technology-oriented enterprise, namely: high market responsiveness, fast developments, low cost, and, finally, high levels of creativity, innovation, and efficiency. What must be understood, though, is that such characteristics are dependent upon the type of technical teams that are the backbone of the company wherein through the utilization of a variety of management practices, a seamless integration of vertical and horizontal means of collaboration need to be implemented in order to create a stable organizational structure for proper operations and product development.
On the other hand, what must be taken into consideration is the fact that though globalization and the process of outsourcing and offshoring technology teams are no longer isolated to merely being within the same building, state, or country but rather are scattered across a wide breadth of countries, cultures and business cultures which management practices of contemporary technology-intensive enterprises need to take into consideration. For example, Microsoft, which is one of the world’s largest software manufacturers, has development teams around the world working on different aspects of the operating systems that it produces.
The inherent problem with this situation is that different methods of the coding procedure combined with a variety of problems related to the time difference, business culture, and sheer distance involved invite problems in all stages of OS development. In fact, it was seen in the case of the development of Windows Vista that problems with the operating system (which was largely considered one of Microsoft’s worst operating systems) were due to problems in effective management practices in helping to consolidate efforts across different borders and cultures.
Management practices in some of today’s technology-oriented organizations need to facilitate better collaboration and communication between global teams despite the distances and diverse cultural differences involved. This means facilitating new means of cooperation through team exchanges (members of one team visiting the other), implementing means of open communication and conceptualization between the two teams at all times, and facilitating better cooperative practices through the development of cultural understanding regarding how particular business cultures work over diverse locations. It is only through this that effective practices can be implemented, which result in characteristics mentioned earlier that are deemed necessary for a technology-oriented company to survive and to thrive.