Enterprise Social Networks adoption is on the rise in companies.

1. Analysis & Outlook
Enterprise Social Networks 2012 – Increasing adoption in near future
The success of consumer social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc
have forced the businesses to provide enterprise social networking within the
organizations as employees are asking for such platforms and if not provided
employees are using free social networks which is risky for the businesses as they lack
control. Enterprise social networks are social networks deployed internally within the
business organizations where access is limited to their employees and limited number
of stakeholders like consumers, etc and are tightly controlled through strict policies by
company management. Enterprise social networks have seen good adoption since past
few years and these networks include Facebook styled profile pages that highlight
employee expertise, interest, hobbies, activity streams and updates, blogs, wikis,
communities, forums, RSS feeds, bookmarks, video/photo sharing and other tools that
help employees within the organization spread across the world to communicate,
collaborate and share knowledge and information and break barriers erected in multi
national companies. Business to Business and Business to Consumers communities can
also be built on the enterprise social networking platforms that allow sharing,
collaborating and participate in the business related conversation and projects. Mostly
IT and Internet Companies are at the forefront of enterprise social network adoption
and traditional companies like manufacturing, etc have yet to adopt these platforms.
Forrester predicts explosive growth for the enterprise social software from 2011
revenues of US$ 600 million to US$ 6.4 billion by 2016 which is a CAGR of 61%. It
also predicted that new social enterprise applications that allow systematic grouping of
employees, information and processes will deliver good return on investment when
compared to previous generation of collaboration apps like email, instant messaging,
and videoconferencing that are called Unified Communications & Collaboration.
According to Gartner Research, the worldwide market for enterprise social software
will top $769 million in 2011, up 15.7% from the $664 million spent in 2010; $578
million spent in 2009 and predicts revenues will reach US$ 1 billion by 2012. IDC
forecasts that enterprise social software market will generate revenues of nearly $2
billion by 2014, which is a CAGR of 38.2% over the 2009-2014 forecast periods.
Research firms predict a significant growth in enterprise social network revenues in the
near future as more and more business organizations start adopting these platforms
internally for their employees. Surveys by Forrester and Altimeter Research have
highlighted that despite having attention of the management, adoption is slow but
increasing and management’s have yet to be convinced of the potential of enterprise
social networks in terms of productivity and profitability.
Similar to email that changed the way employees communicate within the organization;
enterprise social networks will change the way employees interact, collaborate, and
share information and knowledge that is critical for their performance improvement and
organizational profitability. These platforms bring a personal touch to communication,
sharing and collaboration process and motivate employees who are geographically
dispersed and with different socio-cultural backgrounds by creating a sense of
empowerment, also through employee profile pages employees and management can
know about the expertise, interests and collaborate in key projects and transfer
knowledge and finally play a critical role in organizational innovation and development
Rajesh Prabhakar Analyst Bio @ http://socialmediacases.blogspot.com/

2. Analysis & Outlook
as employees share their knowledge, best practices, streamline processes by avoiding
duplication, wastages and provide ideas for the development of the products and
services. This will finally lead to improved products and services, improved
communication and collaboration with customers which will help in improving their
satisfaction and improved organization reputation and profitability. Engaging
employees in the innovation and idea generating process is one of the crucial activities
being done by most of the businesses today be it large or small and the enterprise social
networks will act as a backbone for such initiatives. Along with enterprise social
networks, consumer social networks presence is also critical for the businesses and
businesses have to find a way to securely integrate the consumer and enterprise social
networks for better results.
Businesses are just looking at enterprise social networking as a collaboration and
communication tool for employees but not as a tool that will help in faster decision
making, business process improving, employee retention and a tool that help in
reducing the email volumes and meetings costs. Businesses too are not convinced about
the return on investment or business value that these platforms generate and because of
this the spending is very low on these tools, after initial euphoria there has been
reduction in focus and there is not serious effort from the management to measure the
impact of these platforms. Lack of active participation of the employees and lack of
proper training, understanding of the significance of the enterprise social networking in
terms of improving their performance, productivity and organizational performance is
also slowing down the adoption of enterprise social networks. Some of the businesses
are offering gifts and other incentives to encourage employee participation but with
limited success. There also need to be an organization policy and guidelines for
employees for avoiding the misuse and other problems. Businesses also need
champions, responsible for monitoring, controlling and initiating the various activities
on the enterprise social networks and champions should be selected from all the levels
of organization including the management executives and they should be active.
Enterprise Social Networks is a major trend and the businesses have to change their
approach in implementing this platform by looking at it a source of business value
creation and formulate policies & strategies for increased participation of employees
and use it a transformational tool for overall organization development. They are just
looking at it as a mere technology without having any performance metrics for
measuring the impact. The constant communication and collaboration will generate
knowledge, streamline processes and increase the flow of information across
hierarchical levels within the organization. Management can interact with employees at
all the levels and the two way communication will be a major advantage for
management to understand employee concerns and for employees to understand
management plans and strategies. For the success of enterprise social networks, top
management and executive sponsorship is a must and their regular participation is also
necessary. Like the way consumer social networks changed the way people
communicate with family and friends, voice their opinions and share information and
knowledge, enterprise social networks too have the potential to change the organization
communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing processes by removing
communication barriers between the employees and the management and together work
for attaining the organizational goals.
Rajesh Prabhakar Analyst Bio @ http://socialmediacases.blogspot.com/