A well-known mining corporation called Goldcorp made over $3bn in gold, when they launched a mass-collaboration (or wikinomics) competition to the public, sharing their geological data. This saved vast amounts of time and money. This helped Goldcorp's market value to $90bn and the geological information cost them just $500,000. On the other hand, what if this unveiling of secrets turned up very few findings and proved unsuccessful? In an industry where intellectual property is one of the company's most valuable assets, key decisions like this can also have a detrimental effect.
MNCs like Nike, have been able to jump on the band-wagon of a 'flatter world', due to advanced technology, and outsourced its manufacturing to contractors in third-world countries - “The majority of their output today is produced in factories in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam”. Monopolising the shoe industry with a 50% market share by avoiding US labour law and utilising it's “Just Do It” slogan, ignoring 'child labour' claims in order to make greater profits. Nike's outsourcing techniques are sure to catch up with them and they may not be able to avail of the low minimum wage-rates in these third-world countries.
McDonalds launched a pilot project that “saves 30 seconds per drive-thru order” by having the person taking your order working in a separate building (call centre) elsewhere. Although this may save labour costs, McDonalds still have 5% of their customer complaints because of incorrect drive-thru orders. Evidently, not all eBusiness innovations are valuable in the eyes of the customer.
Or maybe it is working...
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