Recap – Enterprise 2.0 is when a business has implemented social media tools into how the business runs.

So here is the real question:

Enterprise 2.0 – Yes or No?

In this post I will go over the pros and cons for why a business should implement social media into there core structure.

First the disadvantages:

  • Reliability and Loss of control – Since social media is not hosted by the business (except in some cases – a wiki), they have less control over users and how the service is run.
  • Reputation – “What goes online, stays online” is very true in the sense that if a customer posts that the business has wronged them with a faulty product or poor service, it can be hard to remove due to the policies put in place by the social media service. Even an employee could post something online about the company that is bad
  • Productivity – Implementing a new service can initially slow down productivity and because of this, not be fully embraced by all of the employees, decreasing productivity even more.

Advantages:

  • Efficiency and Productivity – Once the users have gotten used to the new social media tools, their productivity will improve dramatically as they have a more efficient ways of communicating and collaborating with each other.
  • Knowledge – A wiki is a great way to allow a database of knowledge to be known to every member of the organisation. Even certain knowledge to the customers to help increase customer faith in your product/service and the company itself.
  • Reputation – Social media tools are excellent for increasing the reputation of a business by allowing them to be seen doing something of worth – like improving a product/service or partnering up with a charity organisation. Social media is basically free advertisement.
  • Staff engagement – The use of wikis or other social media tools like Google Docs. Allowing the staff to engage each other can further innovations to happen that not have normally occurred.

Adopting Web 2.0 tools and joining the Enterprise 2.0 community has helped many businesses like Colgate,  McDonalds, IBM and even NASA. An associate of mine, Nicholas Burge, has more information about how Enterprise 2.0 has helped the IBM and NASA. For a list of some Enterprise 2.0 Success stories, check out this link to a blog post by Pete Wildermuth.

~Daniel Keirnan