Archive for Enterprise Software
by Joe McKendrick
March 15, 2011 at 9:59 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Software, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Networking
A recent article in Knowledge@Wharton asks if business-centric social networking is a “revolution” or a “ruse.” Since we’re inclined here at this site to pick the revolutionary option, it’s worth examining why some experts at UPenn’s Wharton School may be skeptical about its power to transform business.
First, there’s the still-uncertain ROI aspect. As Shawndra Hill, a Wharton operations and information management professor, put it: “Social networking in the enterprise sector is relatively new, and better tools can enable people to communicate across an organization. But before this really takes off, there needs to be some proof that these things are useful.” Kartik Hosanagar, Wharton professor of operations and information management, echos this sentiment: “I’m a little skeptical about usage, but I’m even more skeptical about benefits to corporations. Companies may use it, but I don’t think it will provide the productivity benefits vendors claim they will provide.”
Ultimately, the success of social networking in enterprises will not be employees and managers adopting sites such as Facebook and Twitter as a separate activity. Kendall Whitehouse, director of new media at Wharton, predicts that ultimately, social networking will simply be pervasive within enterprise software and processes. “Today, social networking is being thought of as a separate thing,” he says. “We’ll see that fade over time, and it will become just part of the way we interact.”
by Joe McKendrick
February 21, 2011 at 12:25 am · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Software, Social Computing, Social Media
I’m often skeptical of the multi-billion-dollar market predictions made by analyst firms. But social customer relationship management (CRM) is definitely an emerging portion of the enterprise 2.0 space, and it’s helpful to see what kind of growth it may generate.
Gartner, for one, just issued a prediction that the CRM market will enter a “three-year shake up” in 2011, as a number of key trends take hold. Sales, marketing and customer service technologies, projects and implementations will all see rapid changes over the next
few years, the consultancy predicts. As Gartner analyst Ed Thompson puts it:
“Over the next three years, social CRM will continue its exponential rise, software as a service (SaaS) will become routine, salesforce.com will reshuffle the market order, and consultants and system integrators will sell their own CRM software.”
By 2015, one-third of spending on new CRM software will be SaaS, Gartner predicts. In 2009, 24 percent of the CRM software market was delivered by SaaS, and this rose to more than 26 percent in 2010, up from virtually zero in 1999.
Gartner also says by 2013, spending on social software to support sales, marketing and customer service processes will exceed $1 billion worldwide. This compares with Gartner’s forecast of more than $12 billion for overall spending on CRM software in 2012, means that social CRM will encompass approximately eight percent of all CRM spending in 2012, up from approximately four percent in 2010.
Gartner issued recommendations for companies interested in social CRM solutions:
- “Determine if there are any social CRM projects already under way; look in the marketing or customer service departments first.”
- “Calculate the likelihood that you will be forced to start something in 2011 ? your industry and culture are the best indicators.”
- “Find case studies specific to your industry that can provide examples of what is possible, and share them with other decision makers in your organization.”
- Don’t try to bypass the IT organization in moving to social CRM solutions, Gartner advises. “Instead, involve IT in purchase decisions early on to avoid the most-frequently cited downstream issue of data integration, and to address potential concerns about inadequate security, scalability and privacy.
by Joe McKendrick
January 30, 2011 at 5:36 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Software, FASTforward'09, Social Computing, Social Media, Web 2.0
Is ‘Social CRM’ (customer relationship management) too good to be true?
Houston Neal, who runs an advisory service for software buyers, has been watching the growing hype around “Social CRM,” and asks: is it for real?
The answer is, he opines, not yet, but organizations sure could use it. The problem is, he says, nobody has a good definition for Social CRM yet, and this is creating confusion in the market.
As I mentioned in a previous post here at FastForward, “Social CRM” has a redundant ring to it. Think of the phrases “round circle” or “free gift” or “digital computer.” The bottom line is that if a company has a non-social, closed-off CRM system, it really isn’t doing CRM at all, is it?
Any CRM implementation worth its salt these days need to blend social media data into the system. Otherwise, it’s a system that is completely missing an important and growing channel that involves many highly engaged customers. The key is to make all your CRM efforts “Social” CRM efforts.
Houston points to another issue that may hamper putting more social into CRM — a highly fragmented market. “The debate over Social CRM has been drawn out over the past couple of years and analysts are still at odds over how to define it. Depending on who you ask, social CRM will mean something different.”
For example, he points out, the social CRM landscape is comprised of several evolving software categories — including the following:
- CRM packages
- Social media monitoring
- Social platforms
- Social analytics
Each category has about 20 to 150 vendors, Houston says. The challenge is deciding which category of software to pursue. He offers the following advice for sorting out a Social CRM strategy:
Don’t look to buy ‘Social CRM’ solutions: “Instead, you need to decide what you are trying to accomplish and which categories [mentioned above] are most likely to make a meaningful contribution to your strategy.”
Define your goals for a Social CRM strategy: “If you just want to track what customers are saying about your brand on the Web, then a social media monitoring application will suffice. But if you want to analyze that data, identify influencers, or spot trends, you should explore social analytics. Finally, if owning the community is strategically important, you will need a platform to build out that environment for your constituents.”
Look to traditional CRM vendors for enhanced enterprise functionality: “Social CRM vendors don’t offer the same level of sales, service and marketing functionality that traditional CRM vendors offer. So if you need capabilities like sales lead management, lead nurturing and a few social features on the side, then you should really be looking at CRM software.
by Joe McKendrick
January 14, 2011 at 5:45 pm · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Software, FASTforward'09, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Networking, Web 2.0
What exactly is the difference between “Social Business” and “Enterprise 2.0,” if there is one?
The question came up at in a Quora discussion, and asked again by Ross Dawson in one of his latest posts.
It’s semantics, but important semantics. Many articles and papers are using the terms interchangeably. You may recall it was Andrew MacAfee who first surfaced the term “Enterprise 2.0″ back in 2007 as a way to describe the application of Web 2.0 approaches and thinking to enterprise settings, but separate it from the consumerist fanfare.
For his part, Ross sees Social Business as an emerging way to describe the transformation that organizations are undertaking as part of their Enterprise 2.0 activities. Enterprise 2.0 as a term may have a more technical cast to it.
In the Quora discussion, our colleague Jevon McDonald also saw Enterprise 2.0 in terms of the tools and Social Business as the outcome:
“Enterprise 2.0 represents a set of technologies and methodologies for IT implementation inside the enterprise. A Social Business uses Enterprise 2.0 software to implement internal social process but also accounts for things such as: external social presence, supporting process, HR issues, policy development and governance.”
Stowe Boyd echoed similar sentiments:
“A social business is an organization designed consciously around sociality and social tools, as a response to a changed world and the emergence of the social web, including social media, social networks, and a long list of other advances. Enterprise 2.0 is generally used to represent the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies — like cloud computing, social media, wikis, and the like — and is, as such, principally a technology adoption issue, and not a reconceptualization of business operations.”
John Tropea, on the other hand, sees Social Business as the journey to reach Enterprise 2.0. E 2.0, he says, is more the idealized end state — Enterprise 2.0 is a concept and strategy to do business a different way… a more transparent workplace, two-way communication, networked/activity centric overlayed on the present process-centric and blended with hierarchy.” As he puts it:
“With social business design we may reach a state of enterprise 2.0 eventually.”
So which comes first — Enterprise 2.0 or Social Business?
by Joe McKendrick
December 15, 2010 at 1:03 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Software, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Networking, Web 2.0
More proof that it really does pay — in a bottom-line kind of way — to be Web/Enterprise 2.0 savvy.
New research out of McKinsey & Company shows that companies embracing Web 2.0 approaches are likely to be reaping more gains and market leadership than their less Web 2.0-savvy counterparts. McKinsey spoke to 3,249 companies as part of its annual Web 2.0 survey, and concluded that these “networked enterprises” are more likely to be market leaders and gaining market share, “but also use management practices that lead to margins higher than those of companies using the Web in more limited ways.”
The study’s authors, Jacques Bughin and Michael Chui, report that 27% of companies overall reported having both market share gains against their competitors and higher profit margins. However, “highly networked enterprises” — those using Web 2.0 inside and outside their organizations in innovative ways — “were 50 percent more likely to fall in this high-performance group than other organizations were,” they report.
The authors predict that in many industries, “new competitive battle lines may form between companies that use the Web in sophisticated ways and companies that feel uncomfortable with new Web-inspired management styles or simply can’t execute at a sufficiently high level.”
Bughin and Chui also report that the majority of companies that have embraced Web 2.0 continue to report that they are receiving measurable business benefits—with nearly nine out of ten reporting at least one benefit. These benefits include increasing speed of access to knowledge (cited by 77% of respodents with internal Web 2.0 efforts and 57% using Web 2.0 to engage external partners); reduced communication costs (60% internal users, 53% external); and decreased travel costs (44% internal users, 38% external).
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