Many years ago (in the late 1930s, to be precise) telecom CEO Chester Barnard defined an organization as a system of consciously coordinated activities of two or more persons. In the intervening eight decades, no one has come up with a better definition. Barnard went further to point out that the survival of any organization depends on its members' ability and willingness to cooperate, communicate, and work towards a common objective. In particular, he noted that in any theory of organization or management, communication must play a dominant role. While Barnard was thinking about US firms in the 1930s with a fairly narrow business focus, his observations still apply today when considering both large and small firms doing business around the world. What has changed is not the fundamental challenges facing companies, but rather the magnitude of these challenges, as well as the manner in which firms organize and “think” collectively to accomplish their core mission.

Consider Wipro and Intel, two highly successful IT companies doing business globally, yet headquartered in very different regions of the world.