Enterprise 2.0 is currently at the early adoption stage, where its enormous competitive advantage will come to only those who embrace the new tools and business cultures. In its most basic form, Enterprise 2.0 is all about communication and comprises of social software.
The principle behind the technology is that how can people communicate more easily– with others including workers, team members, customers, vendors, and clients – in a way where information is less distorted. If the information is freely available, people can get more collaborate, react more quickly and make better decisions. Hence, we can say that with the Enterprise 2.0; a more efficient, productive and intelligent workforce can be formed.
Enterprise 2.0 is fueled by three things: Web 2.0 technologies, a demand for increased socialization of enterprise applications and business cultures that enable companies to take full advantage of the applications, technology. But, there are few risks in the implementation of the socially networked business ecosystem. You have to understand basic human behaviour and execute the application to promise true business transformation.
Here we discuss some important points which help you to avoid Enterprise 2.0 failure:
1. Focusing on organizational benefits: In the initial phase of planning, the employer may focus primarily on organizational benefits and thus ignore the individual incentives and behaviours, which are the psychological drivers and in turn deliver improved performance.
2. Enterprise 2.0 design: The major hurdle in creating successful socially networked business ecosystems is premature technology selection. The employer has to find out its performance objectives that he wants to target and then opt for the best breed solution that makes sense.
3. Check your ROI (Return on Investment): Before joining the bandwagon, you must check the break points through the inputs and outputs of Enterprise 2.0 design. ROI comes from effective program execution, of which social software is one component. For example, social applications like Facebook and LinkedIn promise to link campaigns in your CRM system to new prospects but if the information is not relevant to the audience than it would not engage these folks.
4. Optimal Ownership Structure: The Enterprise 2.0 promises to create a smooth organization but occasionally it adds tremendous headaches to gatekeepers of traditional organizational charts and hierarchy, for example in the area of customer support where vendors are now re-casting as ‘Social CRM’. Hence, you should sort out the target areas that are close to the performance objectives.
5. Metrics and Performance Goals: There are some reasons that can be true for successful enterprise social computing projects if they have positive factors, which counterbalance them. Hence, organizations formulate its business metrics on ‘sentiment’, frequency of sharing, affinity, engagement, conversations and other such data points. These new metrics are undoubtedly valuable but should serve as catalysts towards achieving well-established business goals that managers and executives are themselves measured by.
Conclusion
Despite the challenges and the global recession, survey reports suggest that organizations will spend more on Enterprise 2.0 technologies in 2009 than they did in 2008. Now, Enterprise 2.0 products are faster and easier to implement than ever before and companies are looking towards Enterprise 2.0 to give them a strategic advantage in times when only the leanest and smartest companies will survive.
