CRITICAL APPRAISAL Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

CRITICAL APPRAISAL - Essay Example This trend first came forth during the 1990s, when companies were trying to outsource non-core business tasks to specialist firms that cost less, which meant giving out a lot of information to smaller groups of contractors in different parts of the globe. It was like inviting outsiders into their company to help in finding innovations and solutions to current problems. This was a great fundamental change that spread among all companies, a business breakthrough made possible by Wikis. The Wiki platform has been one of the widely used Web 2.0 technologies. Wikis are web-based software that allow Internet users to edit data and other material (e.g. Wikipedia). So, the business model was named Wikinomics (Dawe, 2009). According to Don Tapscott, an expert on business-strategy and a co-author of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, companies have realized that they have to connect to their customers and listen to what ideas they can offer. It means that companies have to interact with the outside world and gather ideas from the outside to use for new products or product improvement. This business breakthrough positions companies who are already using it in their strategies to face today’s changing economy with ease and gear themselves towards success (Dawe, 2009). With the time’s fast-paced global marketplace, successful collaboration is the answer to achieving a competitive advantage in the business field, and Cisco has through forward regarding mass collaboration. Cisco is known to be the worldwide networking leader that changes the way people connect, communicate and collaborate with each other. It is a multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. It manufactures switches, routers, and other networking and communications hardware both for business and home usage (St. James Press, 2000). Cisco Systems was founded in 1984 by Len Bosack, Sandy Lerner, and Richard Trojano in