IT Exchange Zone

The Coming Era of the Social Business

What is a social business?

According to research firm IDC, it's an enterprise that is actively leveraging the power of communication, collaboration and social media technologies. Today's collaborative technology "has changed customer, employee, supplier, and partner expectations and is shaping a fresh way of interacting," the firm states. "As interaction is redefining online relationships, innovative methods of communication and collaboration have emerged and trust takes on new importance."

To help organizations better understand the dynamics of collaboration in the social business, the firm has created a new strategic framework.  The framework is designed to "foster better communication, collaboration, and overall understanding of current market dynamics to decrease language barriers between vendors, customers, and the broader industry."

The key elements of the framework are:

• Market Factors. These issues generate a need for business change. Among them: competition, brand awareness, customer behavior, economic conditions, and workforce dynamics.


• Social Objectives. These objectives are closely linked to overall business strategies and goals -- and are tied to the key stakeholders in your organization. Among them: customer engagement; employee empowerment; partner enablement; and supplier engagement.


• Social Outputs. These are the vehicles used to collaborate and interact with stakeholders. They fall into two areas: content and community. Content is the communication that occurs in collaborative media, while community most often manifests itself as a social network or group that is connected by some interest or issue.  


• Social Technology. This category includes social platforms, social applications and social features. Social platforms serve as a foundation for building solutions that integrate content and community.  Social applications carry out a collaborative business function or generate social media. Social features are modifications on evolving applications.

This framework is designed to help companies adapt to an environment that is far different from what we've experienced. "In the 1990s, companies and technology vendors focused on using technology to define and manage rigid business process," according to IDC. "The systems, which grew out of manufacturing and industrial businesses, were designed to standardize, control, and ensure compliance."

But demands have shifted and companies must explore new approaches. "While process is still relevant and important, it must be more flexible to accommodate the dynamic business environment created by the hyper-connected and highly mobile Internet. The social business recognizes that people and businesses collaborate in different ways. It enables a choice in communication methods among today's workforce, where it is not the technology at the center of the conversation but how people work and interact."

How Video Conferencing Answers THE Question

"How can we cut more costs while increasing revenue?"   This is THE famous question most businesses are frustrated with.  Especially in this economic time when many businesses have already cut as deep as they can. 

Some businesses are confident they have answered this question with collaboration tools.  Video conferencing has compelled many businesses to act due to the desired results of cost reduction through reduced travel, and increased revenue resulting from speeding up the buying process and increasing the green initiative by lowering their carbon footprint.
 
Video conferencing benefits at a high-level snapshot:

Less travel means fewer expenses and more time... time is money. 
Think of the however many hours traveling by car or plane could be used more efficiently in your organization.  Wouldn’t all of us want additional hours put back into our weeks? We still want to be realistic and state that video conferencing will not replace ALL in person meetings yet it will allow meetings to be scheduled more often and provide a rich user experience that moves deals forward that used to stall due to logistics delays.  Saving the related costs in airfare, car maintenance and mileage also adds up to a considerable amount for many companies.
 
Collaboration is taken to another level.  
Partners, clients, and employees work more efficiently and effectively with one another when video is an inclusive part of meetings held at a distance.    Less than 10% of communication is what is actually being said so there is that 90% left that consists of tone, body language, facial expressions, etc.   Video conferencing leads to more effective and efficient projects, sales cycles and partnerships.  In addition, it leads to stronger relationships among clients, peers and partners.
 
More efficient employee recruitment and a higher retention rate.  
Employees are your most important assets as well as your most costly expense.  There is a high cost in recruiting the perfect employee for your business.  Then we factor in a higher cost of investing in developing their talents, yet the cost of replacing them is exponential.  With video conferencing you could give all offices the best training with the same in-person intimate experience without location becoming an issue, reducing those costs.

In  addition, by providing them with top of the line tools, you empower them to achieve their  goals more effectively. You also enrich their work-life balance by providing them with the flexibility to work from anywhere at any time.   Improving your employee’s professional and personal lives will absolutely provide you with that competitive winning edge through higher productivity and loyalty.
 
Add on to the “Green” initiative.
Less travel means you are doing your part to help achieve a cleaner, more beautiful environment!
 
These are some of the many benefits that video conferencing can bring your business today.  Before acting it is critical to remember that with video conferencing, one size does not fit all.  Before designing a solution it is important for your solution experts to gather deep insights about how you conduct business and achieve the desired business results.  After gathering this information your solution specialist can then provide you with the best approach to attaining your desired results.

Strategically Sourcing Borderless Networks

Networks, once viewed as "tactical "plumbing," have become a strategic platform for enterprise growth, performance and productivity. Has your strategy for sourcing and developing your network evolved to match these great expectations?

Not in many cases. While networks are now expected to link the extended enterprise of internal employees, customers, suppliers and partners, many companies continue to invest in their networks based on conventional criteria. What will enable them to better position themselves for the future?

Yankee Group, a research firm, identifies three possible network purchasing strategies that enterprises now pursue:

• Cost-based purchasing: Cost-based strategies that focus on purchasing the lowest priced equipment may end up providing an organization with a real cost advantage in the short term (which can be important in a down economy). But eventually, the cost model breaks down and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) goes up.


• Best-of-breed technology: The best-of-breed purchasing approach, in which organizations select the very best technology available for every point in the network, may result in a cutting edge network with the latest and greatest capabilities... Within just a two- to three-year period of time, however, the organization ends up with a collection of non-interoperable network devices that support limited, specific functions. This makes manageability and support very expensive, eventually driving up TCO.


• Systems approach: This strategy, which evaluates the network as an end-to-end system, involves purchasing as many of the infrastructure products from a single vendor as possible. While it may result in purchasing equipment that is not quite so cutting-edge as best-of-breed, it has many advantages in the areas of training, interoperability and manageability, and it typically has a lower TCO than best-of-breed or cost-based purchasing strategies. This is because new services in an end-to-end single-vendor network are easier to provision and consistency of performance is easier to maintain.

Yankee Group points out that it's vital to choose the right purchasing strategy, particularly if one is taking a long-term view for network investments.  While acknowledging that some organizations (with "static environments") might benefit from using a low-cost vendor and some (who are willing to continually upgrade and test) may benefit from the best-of breed approach, most companies will achieve superior results and TCO from a systems approach.

"The integration of the network with business processes and applications requires that organizations treat the network as a holistic entity by taking a systems approach," according to Yankee Group. "The only way to ensure that the network can deliver the required level of security, application optimization and performance is to ensure it acts as a platform. This means it is crucial to choose a vendor that can deliver on the vision of a systems approach."