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McKinsey Survey: Seven Out of 10 Seeing Web 2.0 Business Benefits

by Joe McKendrick

September 2, 2009 at 5:33 pm · Filed under 2.0 Design Thinking, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, User Revolution

McKinsey has just published the results of a survey of nearly 1,700 executives from around the world which paints a highly positive picture of the business returns being seen from Web 2.0 deployments.

Close to seven out of ten respondents (69%) report that their companies “have gained measurable business benefits [italics mine], including more innovative products and services, more effective marketing, better access to knowledge, lower cost of doing business, and higher revenues.”

This is probably the most significant set of survey findings I have seen yet that document actual benefits being seen from Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 deployments. There has been quite a stir in the blogosphere lately about the lack of actual results being seen from these new methodologies (check out Dennis Howlett’s latest post on the topic, along with my colleague Paula Thornton’s observations).

What kinds of benefits, exactly, does McKinsey see coming out of Web 2.0 sites? In the survey, half of respondents report that Web 2.0 technologies have fostered in-company interactions across geographic borders, 45 percent cite interactions across functions, and 39 percent across business units.

The measurable benefits cited span both knowledge management and simple cost-cutting:

Increasing speed of access to knowledge            68%

Reducing communication costs                           54%

Increasing effectiveness of marketing                  52%

Increasing speed of access to internal experts     43%

Increasing customer satisfaction                          43%

Decreasing travel costs                                       40%

Increasing employee satisfaction                          35%

With the growing availability of services over the network, you can see how there will be increased velocity of knowledge and improved communications. It would be interesting to see how employee satisfaction, cited by more than a third, is measured.

Interestingly, the highest-rated Web 2.0 technologies/services in terms of business benefits delivery among companies are video sharing and blogging.

The top-rated technologies in terms of internal use include the following:

Video sharing         48%

Blogs                     47%

RSS                        42%

Social networking    42%

For external use, such as connecting with partners and suppliers, the following technologies delivered the most benefits:

Blogs                        51%

Video sharing           50%

Social networking      49%

RSS                  45%

The more the technologies are used, the more benefits seen, the survey also shows. As McKinsey puts it:

“Web 2.0 delivers benefits by multiplying the opportunities for collaboration and by allowing knowledge to spread more effectively…. Among respondents who report seeing benefits within their companies, many cite blogs, RSS, and social networks as important means of exchanging knowledge. These networks often help companies coalesce affinity groups internally. Finally, respondents report using Web videos more frequently since the previous survey; technology improvements have made videos easier to produce and disseminate within organizations.”

McKinsey also observes that more than half of the companies in the survey plan to increase their investments in Web 2.0 technologies, while another quarter don’t expect their level of spending to change. The study also suggests that the turbulent economy may have increased interest in Web 2.0 technologies.

Of course, there are still about a third of respondents that absolutely have not yet seen any business benefits from Web 2.0. What is not clear is whether employees at these companies are using Web 2.0 under the radar, and thus progress cannot yet be measured.

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Pam StrayerSeptember 2nd, 2009 at 6:18 pm

I also read this report and jumped up and down. Thanks to McKinsey for supplying us all with a lot of great data. I was really super surprised to see that MORE of the respondents found 2.0 benefits internally than with customers or vendors even…this runs counter to what we hear all the time (social media for marketing info is widespread) but maps to my internal reality meter, so I was very glad to see the data.

Does anyone know what respondents were calling 2.0? I would like to know whether they are all using Sharepoint…or what tools they consider to be 2.0?

Another surprise to me was the number of firms who used web video – in fact it ranked number one. Since I work on this myself, I was happy to know companies are finding it so impactful and effective.

Torben RickOctober 6th, 2009 at 9:24 am

Are customers getting in control?

People want to be heard, they want a human being to say “I’m sorry that happened, let’s see what we can do to make it right.” They will let their friends know how they were treated – because they can.

If not heard and helped they will react. I the old days may bee tell approximately 8-10 friends about it – nowadays they will tell the “whole world about it”.

What went wrong for Time Warner?

http://tinyurl.com/yc8hcug

EurowebGroupSeptember 3rd, 2009 at 9:45 am

RT @Karrierebibel McKinsey: 69 Prozent der Top-Manager finden, dass soziale Netze Vorteile bringen http://tinyurl.com/nshtm4