Cross-Functional Collaboration Comes of Age

Is cross-functional collaboration finally becoming a key operational priority for companies, after years of talking about and toying with it while functions mostly stayed within their silos? Perhaps, suggests new research from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

To some extent, the shift is being driven by changing customer behaviors, according to PwC. The study report presents a not-uncommon type of scenario, where a company takes a cost-driven step like reducing inventory or customer-service staffing. Too often, customers then see empty shelves or suffer frustratingly slow response times, and in today’s world they’re not going to be patient in the face of such negative experiences for long.

There are risks, PwC says, when “each function improves its own performance without thinking of cross-functional tradeoffs and customer impacts first.”

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