Collaborating across lines of business for competitive advantage

Executive Overview They are the team to beat. Why? They don't slow themselves down with the clutter of bureaucracy—they let them swarm. They are gang tacklers who overwhelm the problem. That could yield inefficiency, but it doesn't. They are smart, quick, and they work seamlessly together. The team to beat collaborates across functions and up and down the hierarchy. Yet collaboration within firms has received far less attention than it deserves in current discussions. Collaboration is a meta-capability that lies at the heart of new forms of competitive advantage in industries experiencing the disintegration of traditional industry boundaries and simultaneous demands to act in both centralized and decentralized ways. Based on interviews with a set of professional service firms known for their ability to work seamlessly across lines of business, the author explores the changes in managerial thinking and marketplace realities that have led to the new strategic significance of internal collaboration and the operational realities of making it work.