Riding the Wave of the Future

LaserShip and Wikinomics

    Collaboration across Boundaries is one of LaserShip’s organizational culture traits.  It describes how “Our organizational and hierarchical lines do not exist to prevent our reaching out to request or give assistance, to offer or receive advice, or to accept or provide feedback that contributes to our mutual success.”  

   Collaboration, trade and the open sharing of ideas, as we have seen (see LaserDay yesterday) are the concepts that have driven the advancement of human and organizations throughout history.  These age-old ideas have received a modern day update with a popular “in” term: Wikinomics.

   What we do, “supply chain logistics” as a network of businesses moving product through connected processes implies a form of cooperation and collaboration and really can be seen as a forerunner of the leading principles of this new field of “Wikinomics” (which describes the effects of extensive collaboration and user-participation on the marketplace and within the business world).

   The use of mass collaboration (the combination and extension of familiar concepts such as teamwork, intra-company cooperation, customer partnerships and end-user relationships) is an extension of the trend to outsources (externalize formerly internal business functions) but has most recently evolved beyond that to refer to individuals who come together and cooperate to improve a given operation or solve a problem.

   This coming together does not just occur in the “virtual” world of online companies and communities or in software development alone but even in traditional industries.  The adoption of collaboration principles in distribution and supply chain logistics is encouraging innovation, coordination and involvement of customers in the value creation process.

  It is worth LaserShip’s effort to understand these emerging trends.  Wikinomics is based upon four essential principles:

·   Openness—Transparent information sharing and an open attitude towards external ideas and resources; this openness is evidence by the creation or adoption of informal networks both inside and outside an organization as well as the willingness to establish new contacts and in sharing resources, information and ideas.

·   Peering—Empowering of employees to embrace team work, self-organization and shared decision-making/problem-solving; static up and down organizational hierarchies are replaced by flat models characterized by ad hoc collaborative forums.

·   Sharing—Sharing all but the most proprietary and strategic processes and information with anyone who can collaborate to accelerate innovation In this way, all players “ride the wave” of new solutions.

·   Boundary-less—Flexible and unstructured approach that ignores internal and external organizational boundaries in order to promote partnerships and collaboration within a company and between suppliers, customers and end-users

  Our Dulles and Miami branches have created a kind of boundary-less, open, sharing and peering collaboration between offices, with Project Managers willing to share ideas and innovations. 

   Our Global Critical Deliveries division, which has a different workflow than our other offices has also created a Wikinomics model:  GCD does not have “a day” in which product coming in completes a work flow and is all delivered by the end of the day; the workflow is around the clock with jobs starting at any time and continuing for an indefinite period until completion through multiple shifts and teams.  By necessity, the recording and sharing of information within GCD must be across shifts and hierarchies (involving management and all others), comprehensive and with peers openly making suggestions and offering ideas.  In many cases, the customers are actively involved in the details regarding shipments along with the airlines that move most of GCD’s shipments, as well as the ground transportation contractors who start and complete the jobs.

   “We have created a mechanism within GCD,” says GCD’s Vice President, “just to facilitate the open free flow of vital information; a mechanism that allows for us to go beyond the nuts and bolts of a job and communicate the thoughts, feelings, experiences of all that have touched a job.” 

  LaserShip has long embraced openness:  Openness to the exchange of ideas, solutions and feedback, with our actions demonstrating approachability, willingness to receive and share the advice and experience of others, and the desire to examine our own actions, performance and results in order to improve ourselves and the company.  Don’t ever doubt LaserShip’s “riding the wave” into the future.