The S.O.A.P Principle of new age competition

The traditional Business principles were to differentiate, compete, think globally and innovate. To do things right, focus on customers and have a great management with all its complexities and hierarchies. But the new WMC wave is proving those traditional thoughts as a passe now. The new age business should run on 4 important principles fuelled by which it is making deep impact and threatening to change the entire structure and modus operandi of the corporations and economy. I term it as the S.O.A.P principle maybe because i come from that IT background :) These competitive principles are:
1) Sharing
2) Openness
3) Act Globally
4) Peering

Sharing is what copyleft is and copyright isn't. Its the opposite of vaulting and treasuring information and knowledge and let it feed and grow on other minds available outside. Today sharing is not just restricted to intellectual property but has extended to bandwidth, processing power etc. too which in true sense is what we can call utilisation for overall social welfare.

Openness here talks about transparency, freedom, flexibility, access etc. in a much more broader and true sense than the ones prevalent in today's organisation when one says that "we are an open organization!" / "We have an open door policy / culture.." A basic underlying distinction between the two is the power to self-organize (the seed of disruptive creativity) and undeterred thought exchange. Infact even the traditional firms have been compelled to take a few steps towards this openness by opening up to their value chain partners atleast for supply chain efficiencies.

Act globally (not just think!) is what Friedman brings out in his book. 'The World is Flat'. Monitor international happenings and changes, source all your resources globally, manage assets across cultures and boundaries.

Peering here means a community of equals and breaks the hard coded tenet of hierarchies. Peering means giving each and everyone a common platform. It is difficult to imagine a firm without any hierarchy, hierarchy has become synonymous with order! We create hierarchies and then the management gurus sit and ponder how to get people equally involved, creative and to contribute productively. The Gurus then give management styles that would then foster participation within existing hierarchies whereas hierarchies inherently deter the same. Peering is pure play participation, participation for various reasons like fun, challenge, altruism. Peering might need a structure but its not command-control hierarchy.

So the question a firm should ask itself today is, "Are we using the S.O.A.P daily?" :)