social software for your business eric imbs

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social software for your businesseric imbs
business social software
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introduction
social software for your business

• Your employees customers are exposed to
  valuable insights every minute of the day.
  Insights that
• matter to your business.
• Business Social Software is about harvesting
  harnessing the collective
• intelligence of those insights to deliver a
  better understanding of the market, reduced
  resolution times for
• issues, accelerated product to market and
  feedback times then making those insights
  instantly available to
• all who need it (rather than waiting for
  marketing dept to gather, package and deliver it
  to the business).
• Until now, the mechanisms for acquiring and
  sharing those insights have been limited, but
  through effective
• application of Web2.0 technologies Business
  Social Software creates new and exciting
  possibilities.

executive summary
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executive summary
social software for your business

• Collaboration is quickly becoming a strategic
  imperative for all businesses. By deploying
  social tools within
• and externally, you create this new layer of
  capability to more effectively and efficiently
  handle exceptions
• to business processes, which is where people
  spend the most time.
• Additionally, these are the types of tools more
  and more people are demanding as the net
  generation moves
• into its second sweep of our workforce and
  customer space.
• Social software offers a simple path with
  lightweight tools that allow valuable formal and
  informal
• conversations, views, sentiments and expertise to
  be captured, channelled and immediately put to
  use in
• the business.
• Business Social Software is THE key to delivering
  the collaboration imperative .

what are the current social software trends?
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social software for your business
current social software trends
The most current trends in Business Social
Software are the use of blogs, wikis, tags and
conversational tools. Most businesses we speak
to, have heard of or are beginning to use these
tools in varying capacities, but their use is
somewhat disjointed with respect to building and
binding useful communities leverage collective
intelligence internally, and particularly in the
public domain. This often has businesses asking
themselves, if these tools are so valuable, why
isnt our business tapping into it how do we
get started? Change within large organisations
can be like steering a big ship, especially when
that change will move from formal, restricted
networks and constructs, into informal networks
and unlimited, open collaborative environments,
which is the new social software trend. There is
some hesitation by business to move into the
Business Social Web space.
why?
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social software for your business
why the hesitation?
For decision makers and influencers who have
limited exposure to social software in the public
space, the shift appears to be fraught with
danger employees loitering in blogs and wikis,
compliance issues, customers influencing other
customers, new support costs, intangible value
propositions etc. These issues are forming the
basis of many business conversations around the
value of social software, which is the perfect
segue into our next topic Identifying the value
of Business Social Software. This is where it
starts to get interesting.
its no passing fad...
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social software for your business
value part 1 (internal)

• There is a lot of activity in an organisation
  that happens informally an event in the
  marketplace,
• competitor changes pricing and you need to
  respond or theres a new project to deliver.
  There is no rule
• book on how to manage these non-routine,
  non-transactional activities, but you still need
  to bring a lot of
• people together to work on them, resolve them,
  respond, adjust and move the situation to the
  next level.
• At the moment, businesses deal with informal
  activities using current informal technologies
  like email and
• the phone. These are not adequate support tools
  to deal with these informal activities. The
  degree of
• informal activity in an organisation, especially
  in relation to non-routine tasks is much larger
  than the kind
• of activities that are workflow, formal, and that
  are supported by a more strict and inflexible
  environment.
• Now we begin to reveal a key value of Business
  Social Software.

value part 2...
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social software for your business
value part 2 (internal)

• The role of Business Social Software is to fill
  the gap between the inflexible tools we use to
  deal with
• more formal tasks and defend ad-hoc, chaotic
  situations, where in many cases it is incumbent
  on a vital
• few to deal with the activity so the resources
  they bring to bear remain hidden from everyone
  else.
• Business Social Software helps identify and bring
  together numerous participants to review and deal
  with
• the situation and create a more effective
  response, which by its transparency becomes
  repeatable and can
• be improved at a much faster rate.
• The bottom line here is that social tools empower
  the user to reach well beyond the vital few when
  a
• situation arises, building on the collaborative
  environments they need, as a situation arises.
• How does Business Social Software enable this?

value part 3...
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implementing social software for your business
value part 3 (internal)

• Collaboration is about finding the right people
  to participate in the situation. Business Social
  Software is
• about making this process faster, more
  transparent, involving more participants while
  enabling the
• business to further nurture those groups thereby
  continually increasing engagement and
  effectiveness of
• these groups of interest or expertise.
• This is because social software allows us to
  build and leverage rich, dynamic data about each
  individual
• that becomes more detailed and relevant with each
  informal interaction they have with us through
  the
• comments they leave, the bookmarks they make, the
  tags they use, the ideas or solutions they
  provide on
• their blogs, tags or wikis. So, because we have
  all these types of information associated with
  each individual,
• we capture and build repositories of valuable
  information from all of these informal activities
  which in
• turn can be used by others in need of information
  or expertise.

value part 4...
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implementing social software for your business
value part 4 (the customer space)

• Extending social tools into the customer space is
  a simple amplification of the internal
  application of those
• tools, and moves you squarely into true community
  collaboration.
• With the right communication pieces supporting
  the social tools, ad-hoc informal yet critical
  situations
• like competitor pricing, transactional issues,
  marketing insights and opportunities, positive
  and negative
• feedback will reach you faster so you can respond
  quickly to capture the opportunity (or limit any
  damage).
• Some of those issues will be addressed and
  resolved within the communities you host, others
  will be
• quickly picked up by others in the business where
  the internal benefits of social software will
  enable
• speedier response and resolutions times.

value part 5...
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implementing social software for your business
value part 5 (the customer space)

• As your online community grows, customers will
  become less reliant on the resources you have to
  manage
• the informal, ad-hoc situations, and seek
  guidance from other community members. This is
  not only a key
• customer benefit it brings significant cost
  saving benefits to the business, where more time
  can be
• dedicated to improved customer service and
  dealing with formal, more complex situations.
• The way customers interact with your themes,
  other people, documents etc through tagging,
  blogs,
• comments and bookmarking provides immediate and
  rich data that enables quick and highly targeted
• responses and action.
• Another less tangible, but extremely desirable
  benefit to customers is the value of being able
  to have ones
• voice heard and sentiment insights shared and
  promoted with the community and with the business
  
• influencers and decision makers.

justifying your investment...
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implementing social software for your business
building a case part 1

• Investments in social software are increasing as
  does the need to justify those investments with
  sound
• business cases. While it is important to
  understand the general benefits of more effective
  collaboration, the
• business case needs to be grounded with something
  more specific to ensure buy-in from those signing
  the
• cheques.
• We have to identify business processes that are
  broken or that can be improved or enhanced
  through
• more effective collaboration, and then tie the
  business case to each specific business process
  metric.
• Whats a good example?

justifying your investment...
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social software for your business
building a case part 2

• In the example of collaboration and issue
  resolution in the customer space, how long does
  it take today for
• specific issues to be captured, reviewed and
  processed by your people and what types of issues
  could be
• managed within the community site without the
  need for direct involvement by your people?
• These are the metrics you need to understand and
  then tie back to the benefits of a shared
  environment in
• which best practices are captured and shared and
  there is self-help peer support in the groups
  your
• community platform has brought together.
• Whats the best approach for novices?

pace...
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social software for your business
making the move part 1

• We know that while Business Social Software as
  described is relatively new in the Australian
  corporate
• landscape, we also know that it has become a
  business imperative that will only grow in
  importance.
• There are many tools out there to ignite the
  power of social software, but where does one
  start, particularly
• if it represents a new direction for the
  business? Well the great thing about social
  software is that it allows
• you to toe-dip firstly in those areas that you
  instinctively know will deliver benefits.
• We, of course need to consult with each client to
  understand specific areas of focus or need at any
  point in
• time, but there are some general guidelines to
  follow to enable a rapid rate of business and
  customer
• uptake and to increase the business appetite for
  social tools as opportunities and benefits begin
  to reveal
• themselves.
• Basic requirements to get you started?

making the move part 2...
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social software for your business
making the move part 2

• An internal set of tools to capture Voice Of the
  Business (VOB)
• innovation platform using tags, blogs and
  conversational software
• workflow tool to manage the output and provide
  reporting
• admin tools to allow the business to
  add/customise themes as required to provide focus
  and drive interest
• rating tools to allow employees to give feedback
  about specific matters
• An external set of more basic tools to capture
  Voice Of the Customer(VOC)
• ability to rate aspects of the business or themed
  promotions
• ability to complain, compliment or provide
  general feedback
• workflow tools to manage the output and provide
  reporting on community activities

making the move part 3...
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social software for your business
making the move part 3

• This early, phased deployment will provide you
  very realistic insights as to the business
  benefits. You can
• then use these numbers about the impact on the
  business metrics that got you here, to justify
  the next
• round of investment for a broader and more
  sophisticated deployment. This approach requires
  minimal
• resourcing and moderation. The customer approach
  is somewhat scaled back initially, so that
• customers can begin to embrace the new channel at
  a gentle pace (through simple rating and feedback
  tools)
• no comments are published publicly until the
  business understands how best to manage the
  community and response mechanisms when it is
  ready to capture the richer data that comes from
  the tools that will enable the community to talk
  to each other and the business
• the business can determine customer appetite to
  justify how and when the next steps are taken

ready to talk?
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social software for your business
talk to us
Our Blogs http//kmsystems.squarespace.com/
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Contacts David Abrahams (email me) 0405 138
432 Eric Imbs (email me) 0403 264 400