Social Media Whitepaper – Employee Collaboration & Communication

I recently read a great whitepaper published by Avanade – “CRM and Social Media: Maximizing Deeper Customer Relationships”.  The whitepaper was based on a Coleman-Parkes Research survey of 541 executives in North America, Europe and Asia.

While the whitepaper focused on CRM, there were some interesting findings regarding the use of Social Media internally for employee collaboration and communication.   Here are a few highlights:

Social Media Drives Business Value & Helps with Recruiting/Retaining Employees
According to the whitepaper:
• Early adopters are reporting improved customer relationships, better corporate reputation and increased sales.
• There will be added pressure to implement these technologies to meet employee expectations and needs. Almost all companies (89 percent overall) agree to some degree that the new generation of employees coming into the business will drive increased use of social networking technologies within a business context.
• Businesses face competitive risks if they fail to embrace the technology going forward in a controlled and strategic manner.

Despite Proven Benefits & Grassroots Adoption by Employees, Some Companies Are Still Slow to Adopt Social Media
According to the whitepaper: “Social media is storming the workplace, often undetected, through a grassroots movement by employees. While business management is aware of the trend toward social media, most have no plan in place to manage the formal adoption of these technologies.”  The whitepaper cites the following key barriers to adoption of social media technologies:
• Concerns about security (76% of respondents)
• Senior management apathy (57% of respondents)
• Fear of using unproven technologies (58% of respondents)
• Fear a negative impact on productivity (50% of respondents)

I would say that we see similar trends with our clients and prospects.  Companies are keen to reap the business benefits of social media but not sure where to start or how to roll out these technologies.  We have developed a proven process that helps companies define their business objectives, select the right social media tools, implement technologies, and then measure results.  We find that this process assists companies with overcoming their social media fears and challenges so that they can begin to profit from these technologies.

How does your company compare to the statistics presented in the whitepaper?  Do you have grassroots use of social media tools?  Do you have a strategy in place to integrate social media technologies into your business?  If you are struggling with these challenges, the Avanade whitepaper is a great resource.  In addition, you may want to check out our whitepaper - Social Computing in the Enterprise.  Our join our upcoming webinar co-hosted with Mike Gotta from Burton Group - IT Best Practices for Enterprise Social Networking.