Promote the spirit of teamwork to enhance company's overall competitiveness, and encourage closer communication between front-end and back-end management teams for better mutual understanding.

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Waste Management is even dabbling in the front end of waste production: In May it invested in a company that is developing a technology that aims to reduce the amount of plastic needed to make packaging, appliances and electronics.

FORBES: Technology

That said, there is increasing evidence that an over-reliance on planning, management and measurement in the front-end of innovation as evidenced by the movement of back-end processes such as lean and six sigma to the front end of innovation, are producing poor returns on innovation effort.

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Like coupons, the real money of the model is probably in infrastructure and database management, not owning a dedicated front-end site.

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As smooth as the iOS experience is on the front end for users, it traditionally posed difficulties for IT managers, primarily in the app management side.

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