Social Business Systems – Success Factors for Enterprise 2.0 Apps
Wednesday, November 23, 2011 by Sterling Raphael
There is no doubt that we are all live in a knowledge-based economy and have become acutely aware that social media changes associations, technology and society. Relevant to organizations, as the use of social media is acquired, a massive transformation happens. Individuals and companies are renewed in their thinking and their manner of communication. I recently came across great way to get ideas for your association, that being to check out what others are doing! See AIIM’s research report. AIIM (www.aiim.org) is the community that provides education, research, and best practices to help organizations find, control, and optimize their information.Michael Brito of Edelman Digital also mentioned the report in his blog noting IBM GM of Social Business Alistair Rennie’s predictions for 2012, which included:
1. Social analytics tools will rule 2012.
2. Online community managers will become necessary.
This is great news for us at Avectra, as our Social CRM suite really works to both of those points. We’re dedicated to collaboration and Enterprise 2.0, and to that end, here are some key findings from AIIM’s research report.
The report noted that 65,000 members use social technologies. This includes reports co-authored with Enterprise 2.0 expert, MIT Professor, Andrew McAfee and Geoffrey Moore, best selling author of Crossing the Chasm.
Social Business Systems, success factors for Enterprise 2.0 applications research revealed that only 21% of responding organizations make no use of social business applications including 6% where its use is specifically discouraged, 25% have ad hoc usage, 38% are moving to a enterprise-wide strategy and 18% consider it to be actively used and coordinated across the enterprise – up from 6% in last years survey.
Listening and learning from many of these industry giants, some of the findings I thought intriguing include:
”51% consider social business to be significant to their overall business goals and success. This rises to 62% in the largest organizations, including 18% who consider it to be imperative. Spending plans in all areas of social business are set to increase considerably with a net of 15-20% of organizations planning to spend more or much more in the next 12 months, particularly on social business infrastructures.
Also, better innovation and shorter project timescales have each moved up the rankings by three places since last year’s report, reflecting more tangible benefits as social business applications are more likely to be included in formal workflows.”
My thought pattern did lead me to diligently review the recommendations outlining some of the challenges found in AIIM’s report: Undoubtedly, this article will save you time and help you to evaluate what your organization needs to step-up your Social Business.
A few highlights:
- Social systems used within a business environment present a number of unique challenges compared to other enterprise IT applications. There is benefit in prototyping or experimenting with some applications in order to gain experience, but don’t let that be too ad hoc in its objectives and governance.
- Employees will only participate in social applications if they find them simple, useful, and to an extent, entertaining. Managers and leaders should set scope and style early on.
- Encourage staff to adopt a business-like attitude to avoid gossip and clutter. If necessary, have a separate social area for birthday congratulations and pet photos.
- Defining a number of application processes rather than specific platforms will help to achieve early wins.
- Enterprise Q&A and Open Innovation schemes have shown themselves to be very productive.
- If there is cross-over as to which applications to use for which purposes or processes, define the scope and set guidance.
- If you expect staff across the enterprise to take time out to respond to questions and requests for help, set up a measurement mechanism and link it to a rewards system either in status or of monetary value.
- To avoid the same questions being asked repeatedly, ensure that you have good search and FAQ mechanisms. Consider linking such content into a generic enterprise search portal or ECM system.
Needless to say, as with many of us, these recommendations provided much insight and actually started a buzz in my head relative to business staff and our customers. I began to consider new social features which could potentially cause an upward shift affecting our current systems with ‘special eyes’ on ultimately maximizing customer satisfaction and results (the lifeblood of every organization!).
In my consideration, I am convinced that small businesses face different challenges and don’t necessarily have to employ the modus operandi of huge corporations. The basics are vital, but the road to success may be shorter to travel until success dictates operating on a larger scale. As AIIM’s research suggests, as with all “enterprise” technologies, wall-to-wall coverage does not happen overnight. For small organizations it takes time to understand the technologies and build a business case. For larger organizations, enterprise-wide deployment is likely to take considerable time and resource.
Adding to this thought, I think that there is an underlying “fear” that when Social Media is incorporated within the business format, executives tend feel the need to “protect their turf.” There is a definite prerequisite to be educated in this arena, especially as it pertains to organizational formulas, privacy, confidentiality, etc. so as not to lay themselves exposed to the media.
So now, along with AIIM’s questions, allow me to pose the following inquiries for your consideration:, and please let us know what you are doing to incorporate social business application within your organization!
- If you are connecting with technology partners how are you enhancing security restrictions?
- Are your employees intensely trained using a social business system?
- What has been your experience as you entered E2.0?
- Have you tried and failed and are you ready to try again?
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Sterling Raphael
Sterling is president of Avectra Labs, the innovation think-tank of Avectra, a web-based Social CRM provider for associations and not-for-profits. In this role, Sterling is responsible for driving product strategy and international expansion. Sterling is a staunch advocate of Social CRM, educating associations and not-for-profits on the value of moving away from transactional relationships that define many memberships toward more social human relationships.
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