Why Do You Need Cross-Functional Excellence?

"My poor dad said, 'You need to know a lot about one specialty'.
My rich dad said, 'You need to learn a little about a lot of things.' " ~ Robert Kiyosaki

Innovation is a pervasively cross-functional process. Although innovation is driven by technology, required competence extends beyond technical know-how. In the → new new knowledge economy and knowledge-based enterprises, → systemic innovative solutions arise from complex interactions between many individuals, organizations and environmental factors. The boundaries between products and services fade rapidly too. If you wish to be a → market leaders today, you must be able to integrate in a → balanced way different types of know-how that would transform stand-alone technologies, products and services into a seamless, value-rich solution.

→ Results-based Leadership

No Idea is Wasted!

Your mind can accept only those ideas that have a frame of reference with your existing knowledge. It rejects everything else. If your knowledge is functionally focused, you'll be open to new ideas related to your functional expertise only and will miss all other learning and innovation opportunities.

If you develop a broad cross-functional expertise, no new idea is wasted. It will immediately connect with the existing knowledge and inspire  you, energize you, and encourage your → entrepreneurial creativity. The broader your net, the more fish you can catch.

Business Architect

The integrated → business system approach to business development and the management process is what distinguishes modern cross-functionally excellent → business architects from functional managers... More

IT Architect: Modern Requirements

→ IT Leader: New Roles of a CIO

→ Modern ICT-powered Value Chain

IT architects are in growing demand.  They are cross-functionally excellent people who can "tie several silos of expertise together," relate to business problems as well as technology, and then sell their ideas upward and downward in the corporate hierarchy. The position of IT architect has become increasingly important to the ever-changing IT industry, and is one that established corporations and start-ups are seeking.  "As IT positions become more specialized and include increasingly detailed responsibilities, there's a need for someone who can tie several silos of expertise together," says Al Volvano, a product manager for Microsoft's Learning Group.

"→ Enterprise architects aren't just technology experts; they are → leaders with broad IT knowledge, the savvy to apply it to business → problems and the communication skills necessary to coordinate the people who will put their plans into action," says Bill Liguori, co-founder of the placement firm Leadership Capital Group.⁷

Master of Business Synergies (MBS)

Being good in separated functions is not enough anymore. If you want to be a market leader, you must be able to build innovative synergies. You must synergize diversities, innovations, business processes, functions, → radical and → incremental improvements, value chain, marketing and selling methods... More

 Business e-Coach

Business e-Coach, a new-to-the-world product and the world leader in business e-coaching is a great illustration of the power of cross-functional expertise as a source of sustainable competitive advantage.  The e-Coach integrates synergistically and systemically many various expertises to inspire innovation and entrepreneurial creativity. Launched in 2001 initially as  a hobby and later on as a home business, it has today customers in 130+ countries. This global success has not created any direct competition to Business e-Coach however. Why? Because potential me-tooers had no cross-functional experts to be able to develop a competitive service and keep upgrading it continuously at high speed.

→ 10 Success Lessons from e-Coach

KoRe 10 Innovative Thinking Tools

The Kore 10 Metaphoric Tools help you invent new things, anticipate market shifts and your opponents' moves, find creative → solutions to a complex problem design a → synergistic innovation strategy... More

Microsoft

Bill Gates believes that the greater the human "bandwidth" that he employs (in other words, collective intelligence Microsoft hires and develops), the greater the strength of his company. Narrow-minded technologists have never fitted Gates' broader ambitions. Gates uses the word "bandwidth" to describe people's intellectual capacity... More