background preloader

Social Business Blog

Facebook Twitter

IBM’s Strategy to Manufacture Social Networking Surprises - CIO Central - CIO Network. Assessing the business benefits of social business. There is now statistically significant evidence that technology-enabled collaboration with external stakeholders helps organizations gain market share from the competition.

Assessing the business benefits of social business

On Monday social business platform leader Jive Software released the results of a recent customer survey on the benefits of social software. The details of the survey were explored earlier this week by fellow ZDNet blogger Oliver Marks and provides a good overview of at least what Jive customers are reporting today in terms of specific returns. Those who are championing social tools in their organization will surely be heartened by the results of this survey. The double digit gains listed are almost universally positive and run the gamut from faster location of needed information to significant decreases in e-mail and support call volume. It's also good to see the results broken down by workforce engagement vs. customer engagement, which is the primary line of demarcation for enterprise social media.

As collaboration goes social, where will it thrive? Not surprisingly, when it comes to how they operate internally, early adopters often map social media and Enterprise 2.0 into language that is broadly understood by the business, usually under the aegis of collaboration.

As collaboration goes social, where will it thrive?

Recently at Lotusphere 2011 IBM analyst Carol Gavin turned heads when she underscored the vast size of the still somewhat nascent social collaboration market. It is at least $100 billion, and perhaps more. While Enterprise 2.0, and more recently Social Business, have been the talk of many in the industry the last few years, the perceived importance of better collaboration via social media has never been more acute.

These days you can't turn around without seeing another statistic on how social media has become a dominant channel for all things consumer. Companies Aren’t Communities. Companies aren’t communities.

Companies Aren’t Communities

They aren’t forums. Companies are companies.