In Brief


Business Social Networking is about information. It's about leveraging the ties between people, making sense of the way they communicate and share knowledge, and thereby turning it into useful information that can be harnessed for business purposes.

The success of instant messaging, blogs, wikis and social media sites in the consumer world is causing business people to consider the business context of this social fabric. Every business leader knows that underpinning the organogram of the enterprise is a fabric of informal social relationships that shapes the operational performance and growth possibilities of the enterprise.

It’s thought now that social networks hold the key to creating new business opportunities, harvest talent, grow corporate intelligence, develop curiosity and creativity, build communities and realize the true potential of a workforce.


Benefits


Reduce/Avoid Costs
Source knowledge and skills internally - find people and the skills they have
Encourage cross-learning across project teams and double-loop learning (i.e. doing better things, not simply doing things better)

Decrease Risk/Liability
Identify the key players in your organization
Contribute to the formation of a social operating system that builds collective intelligence and improves workforce productivity

Increase Business Opportunity
Leverage business social networking activities of staff to discover new business opportunities through social ties

Increase Revenues
Broaden online reputation and reach
Identify new vehicles for low cost marketing


Challenges


For Business Leaders

1. How to know what the organization is capable of by exposing talent, ideas and the pockets of innovation

2. Understanding the business benefits that different social networking approaches bring

3. Affordability


For IT Leaders

1. Selecting a social networking solution that does everything it needs to do.

2. How to integrate and tailor social networking into the business information environment.

3. Security and retention of social intelligence and related documents and IP.


Related Solutions




Encanvas Social Office™