A Social Outbreak
Its hard to ignore the impact and wide spread popularity that social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace have had on our personal relationships. These viral services have exploded like a pandemic across the globe, linking friends, families and colleagues together and allowing them to share and communicate with one another, whenever and wherever they want. The ease of adoption and subscription to these services is truly virulent, but how have these "personal tools" affected the way we work? These social tools have changed the way we interact with our "buddies," but what if we substituted these with these terms with "Vendors", "Customers" and "Employees"? How would this look?
Impacting the Enterprise
The wide spread adoption of social networking and the enabling technologies of Web 2.0 have become so ingrained in our personal lives that companies are now incorporating these forums and tools into their business. Sales professionals and recruiters have been combing social networking sites for years to mine, profile and interact with new prospects. Corporations have also come on board, setting up public profiles and pages on these platforms for its customers or "buddies" to commune with. Using this information they improve their relationships with customers, get real feedback and learn how to better market their products and services; enhancing the way they do business.
While some companies merely use or link their applications to these public platforms, others have incorporated Web 2.0 functionality into their enterprise applications. It’s the collaborative and real time nature of these platforms that are proving Web 2.0 has a place in the enterprise. Static Intranet sites are being replaced by corporate Wikis, RSS feeds and Micro-Blogging. Chat is replacing water cooler conversations and status emails, while customer surveys become customer forums. With this, companies are extending their business applications like CRM and ERP platforms beyond their traditional means; resulting in a more responsive and effective organization. However, unlike traditional enterprise applications many of these tools are offered as a service or have Web 2.0 services built in, making them affordable and very easy to deploy and scale.
While most people are reaping the benefits of this open communication for personal use, many companies are unsure about the openness of Web 2.0. When compared to traditional means of integrating applications and services, Web 2.0 tools present a different set of challenges that not all firms are prepared to deal with. How can companies regulate these distributed and open communication platforms without hurting adoption? Who should participate in these services; does global inclusion reap net benefits in workplace efficiency? IT and Business executives are asking these questions and are concerned about security, governance and liability, which are all valid concerns. However, as with most applications or business processes, proper planning and integration can lead to success. If your company is unsure or unfamiliar with these technologies, don’t avoid them, get educated and get the help of an expert to assist. Missing out on these enabling technologies could put your company at a distinct disadvantage in today's global economy.
1. Wikis, RSS and Forums: Web 2.0 bulletin boards have replaced memorandums and sticky notes. Now employees can use the tools to enhance collaboration within specific work groups or processes, that currently leverage or span multiple transactional enterprise systems.
* Project Management: PMOs and Project Management Systems are adopting wikis to share best practices, templates, ideas and policy across all projects.
* Sales: Sales professionals that use Sales Force Automation platforms are now leveraging wikis and forums to share ideas, sales techniques, and dynamic collateral to improve sales performance.
* Marketing: Design and advertising teams are leveraging social networking techniques within their affinity groups and market segments for more targeted, effective marketing campaigns. Additionally, on-line forums are now being used as focus groups and to collect valuable feedback.
* Customer Service using Wikis, RSS feeds and forums to distribute workflow, knowledge and support across Help Desks, Product Support and Customer Care groups.
2. Backward and Forward: Integration of Enterprise Systems with Web 2.0 based applications is prevalent. While much of this linkage was built by Web 2.0 companies looking to connect their products to the legacy business applications companies rely on each day, traditional companies are now designing and building hooks or APIs to connect web services as well. Companies such as Zoho, Google and Linked-In have developed numerous APIs to interface with both client, mobile-client and server based technologies. Now Microsoft, Blackberry and Oracle are building native support of Web 2.0 features and collaboration with companies like Salesforce.com.
3. Fully functional Enterprise 2.0: Holistic business platforms with right mix of traditional and Web 2.0 features are now emerging. Existing enterprise firms such as Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle are rethinking and retooling their platforms to the web 2.0 standard. New Web 2.0 firms are looking to develop and add enterprise functionality to their Web 2.0 platforms. Look for more of these applications an platforms from traditional infrastructure companies such as Sun and IBM. With this sort of interest and investment behind these platforms, one thing's for sure, Enterprise 2.0 will be big part of how we operate; it just depends on how soon companies are willing to adopt these complete platforms.