Session theme 2: Networks at work

The transformation of currently established work forms will create both challenges and opportunities. In particular, these will concern the increasingly complex networking of companies, processes and products. As the sessions addressing this topic will show, it takes openness to new approaches and the necessary skills to take full advantage of the many opportunities that networked collaboration offers – whether this involves crowdworking, data-based business models or the particularities of geographically dispersed and time-flexible teamworking.

Networked working is already a reality today, taking many different forms and occurring on many different levels, from the use of new technologies by virtual teams to collaboration across multiple disciplines and complex company partnerships.
One example of networked working is the growing provision of smart services, meaning data-based, digital services. These can be used to provide solutions tailored to the customer’s requirements, allowing companies to tap into new areas of business – with the support of intelligent technologies, usually in company networks.
The sessions in this session theme will show the impact that business models like this and collaboration in complex networks can have on existing company processes. The sessions will examine how to develop structures, tools and models that benefit both companies and their employees in response to the transformation processes involved.
Participants will learn which skills and tools are needed to work successfully and comfortably in the context of digitally connected company networks and changed company-customer relationships.