FreshNetworks Blog

So far in our social business blog series we’ve provided a definition of  social business and why it’s important in a commercial context.  We’ve also looked at existing examples of social business by looking at a few social business case studies, as well as providing some simple, practical advice on how to succeed at social business.

In this final post of our social business series, we’ll look at how you can get the ball rolling in your own organisation.

Social business, after all, is really a re-evaluation of how communication takes place within a company. The difficulty comes from the need for a new company culture, and that’s usually dependent on top-down movement from senior levels.

So while you might understand the importance of clearer communication and collaboration, how can you convince the key decision makers that it’s something they really should be thinking about too?

1. Find your champion

At a recent seminar I attended about social media use in FTSE 100 companies, Bian Salins, Head of Social Media Innovation for BT Customer Service, commented that a strong personality is an essential requirement for encouraging a company to adopt social media.

Basically, Bian was saying was that you need to have a champion, someone who will not back down, especially when facing senior stakeholders who are invested in or unwilling to change from legacy systems and procedures.

If you have to face middle management before reaching key stakeholders, finding someone in this level who is already aware of social media and it’s value can help improve your chances and can give you an ally.

2. Find your story

Obviously, enthusiasm and charm alone will not be sufficient for your champion – solid evidence of why social business adds value is a vital instrument.

To do this you may need to start small. If possible,  get a pilot scheme running (which is also a good opportunity to involve middle management and find your champion).

While the main challenge may be getting approval from senior executives, demonstrating the value and generating buzz from the bottom up can show that there is not only a need for social business, but a willing and prepared pool of evangelists who are ready to encourage adoption.

If you aren’t able to get your own process started, then case studies of strategic social media use from other businesses are another way to demonstrate success and reduce perceived risk. Of course, it never hurts to highlight how it has been beneficial to competitors,but having the first mover advantage is probably more beneficial.

Social business - the scale is international

Continuing from our definition of  social business, this post will introduce look at 3 brief case studies of multinational companies that have successfully adopted social business.

As part of the 2.0 Adoption Council, IBM (in association with MIT Center for Digital Business and the Dachis Group) has published a series of case studies demonstrating integrated social business. Here is a summary of three of the largest:

Alstom

The French multinational has 70,000 employees across 70 countries – giving great collaboration potential, but the formation was fragmented  due to growth through acquisitions and mergers.

The Alstom University focused on their people and process before considering technology. Running a series of pilot communities allowed them to receive executive buy-in, which promoted adoption by employees. Awareness about the community platforms and collaboration tools was achieved by a video shown at company events, and education was provided through an e-learning programme.

By taking this people-centric approach Alstom succeeded in creating a collaborative culture throughout the company, where the social tools were treated as a means instead of an end, and collaboration was not relegated to being used only virtually.

IBM

In an organisation as large as IBM (nearly 400,000 employees worldwide),  initiating change requires advocates.

IBM’s initial aim was to develop social collaboration for the IBM sales team, but their long term aim was to roll this out to the entire business. In IBM’s case a pool of 50 enthusiasts grew to 250 within six months, and was over 1,300 within a year.

An important part of IBM’s approach was to highlight the benefits of collaboration to its employees through blogging and sharing content. The aim to “evangelize everyone” and promote understanding of the benefits has been reinforced with top-down encouragement, with IBM CEO and President Sam Palmisano encouraging all IBM staff to use social collaboration in their day to day work.

Nokia

With almost 60,000 employees and an autonomous culture, Nokia found that social media tools were being used independently of each other and social media silos existed throughout the business. The challenge was for Nokia to harness these individual networks into one collaborative social business strategy.

The success hinged on executive support, which granted two internal pilots to take place in the business. The micro-blogging pilot has already seen success, and a crowd-sourcing pilot has even resulted in a change to the company culture. One key benefit was a boost to employee morale – the feeling that they are being listened to and the potential for recognition of their ideas has given the company a “feeling of connectedness”.

Learnings

It’s essential for buy-in from an executive level in order for a large company to become a social business. It’s also important to remember that technology should only enter the equation after considering the people who will be using it. These mini case studies show the strength of social business in terms of scale.

As all these examples are technology companies – it could be argued that they could integrate social business more naturally. In the next post of this series, we’ll look at companies who are already using social media and should be thinking about taking it further – if you have any suggested examples please do leave a comment below.

“Social business” – what does it mean? We’ll be exploring the concept of a social business in a series of blog posts over the coming weeks.

What is social business?

The term “social business” predates social media (referring to “a non-loss, non-dividend company designed to address a social objective” – Wikipedia).

However, in the context of social media we define it as: the implementation of the unique communicative properties of social media across all levels of a business.

Examples of social business integration would be:

• Collaboration tools – allowing colleagues to work on a project simultaneously and remotely.
• Customer service – responding to questions, complaints and suggestions made on social networks. This can be handled collaboratively such as BestBuy’s Twelpforce.
• Internal communication – intuitive messaging that is free from fragmentary nature of email.
• Social CRM (SCRM) – customers will increasingly expect consistency and awareness of their social history with a company, no matter who or what department they interact with.

Why should I be interested in social business?

While the marketing potential of social media is well known, social business offers smoother internal workflows for employees, as information is passed and updated in a fast and intuitive manner.

Consumer social media is important for communicating with the public, but Facebook or Twitter are not always suitable for internal use by enterprise, and so specialised software and tools are required. While these may have a Facebook-like “feel” to them for easy employee adoption, enterprises have to be prepared to roll out new platforms, as integration across the entire organisation is essential.

So why are companies not using social business yet?

Fundamentally it’s because businesses are daunted by the implications of making fundamental changes to their operation. While social business is designed to be scalable,  the first step  requires a desire and understanding of its importance from the top-down.

Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter has written on the topic of the “social maturity” of an organisation, and similarly their progression through a variety of organisational models. We will consider these models, and the future of social business, in the later posts of this series.

A report out this week from AT&T explores the adoption of social networking  in the workplace and the  rise of Enterprise 2.0. Based on 2,500 interviews in five countries (Great Britain, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany) the report looks at what use is made of which tools and how this helps (or otherwise in the workplace).

The headline findings are interesting on their own and suggest a growing acceptance and usefulness of social networks and social media in the enterprise. Almost two-thirds of those responding (65%) said that social networks had increased either their efficiency at work, or the efficiency of their colleagues. But perhaps a greater sign of the power that social networks can bring to the workplace is the 63% of respondents who said that using them had enabled them to do something that they hadn’t been able to do before.

This starts to show the real power of social media – it’s not just about letting people do old things in new ways, but about facilitating completely new ways of connecting, sharing, and indeed of working.

What is most interesting, however, is to explore this data a little bit deeper, and indeed to look at the data on a country-by-country basis. Taking only the adoption of social networks as part of “everyday life at work in Europe”, the figures reveal something surprising – Great Britain lags behind the other countries in the study:

1. Germany – 72% of respondents report adoption of social networks in the workplace
2. Netherlands – 67%
3. Belgium – 65%
4. France – 62%
5. Great Britain – 59%

This positioning is surprising, not least as adoption of social networks like Facebook is higher in Great Britain than elsewhere in Europe. That rate of adoption of Enterprise 2.0 may reflect more on British working styles and habits, or indeed on the mix of industries that predominate in that country. But whatever the reasoning it would be good to see higher adoption in the UK, if only because, as this survey shows, those organisations that adopt Enterprise 2.0 can be more efficient and can let you do things you have never done before. In the current economic climate, organisations could benefit from both of these.

Some more reading

• Facebook Conquers Europe With Triple-Digit Growth (mashable.com)
• Useful Differentiation – Enterprise Social Computing vs. Everyday Use of Social Networks (fastforwardblog.com)
• Active Facebook Users By Country (radar.oreilly.com)