Enterprise 2.0: Businesses not sure how to use social networking tools
By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 5/21/2008 5:46:00 PM
More than 40 percent of businesses believe Web 2.0 technologies such as RSS, wikis, and blogs can bring significant value to their operations, but few organizations know how to properly deploy these technologies. Those facts came to light in a recent survey conducted by AIIM—The Enterprise Content Management Association. .
AIIM queried more than 400 businesses about their knowledge—and plans for deploying—Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 technologies, and their plans for deploying them. Forty four percent of respondents said these technologies are “imperative” or of “significant importance” for their organization. Another 27 percent said Enterprise 2.0 technologies such as RSS, blogs, and wikis could positively impact business goals and success.
Despite their perceived strategic value, most organizations (74 percent) claim to have, at best, only a vague familiarity with Enterprise 2.0 technologies.
AIIM hopes to remedy that situation through a new Enterprise 2.0 training program. The program initially will focus on the use of Web 2.0 technologies to improve collaboration and retain knowledge within an enterprise, but also to reduce the dependency of email as a collaboration platform.
AIIM research shows that most organizations see Enterprise 2.0 in one or more of the following ways:
• The application of Web 2.0 to the enterprise;
• The next generation of enterprise content management solutions; or
• Technology that enables people to collaborate and/or form online communities.
According to AIIM research, the use of Web 2.0 technologies on the commercial Web is a driving factor for the Enterprise 2.0 market. Exposure to technology and tools such as Facebook, iTunes, YouTube, Google, and Wikipedia are raising the bar on user expectations concerning interfaces, collaboration and content access not only on the Web but on intranets as well.
When asked to identify the primary accomplishment targeted by Enterprise 2.0 implementations, 69 percent of respondents in the AIIM survey pointed to “increase collaboration.” Virtual collaborative teams are also being established at the intra-corporate level, as extended-enterprise models and outsourcing/off-shoring becomes more popular. These business models place a great deal of focus on the need to support collaboration that spans time and space (i.e., the type of collaboration provided by Enterprise 2.0 platforms). In fact, when asked which business goals and objectives would be impacted by Enterprise 2.0, knowledge management (i.e., increased capture of corporate knowledge) ranked second only to increased collaboration within the organization.
When it comes to barriers to Enterprise 2.0 deployment, “Lack of Understanding/Appreciation” was the top challenge, cited by 59 percent of respondents, followed closely by “Corporate Culture” and “Lack of a Business Case (ROI).”
AIIM says its training program offers and an understanding of industry best practices for deploying existing and emerging Enterprise 2.0 technologies. AIIM offers classes across at locations across North America, in addition to online courses for attendees’ convenience. For more information about the AIIM training program, visit www.aiim.org/training.
