Social networks in the enterprise: Facebook for the Fortune 500
It looks as though 2009 is likely to be the breakout year for social networks in the enterprise. Internal and external spending on social networking solutions from IT providers and carriers may approach $500 million. Social networks are likely to be considered an inexpensive solution in what is likely to be a financially constrained IT spending environment76.
Globally, social networks have enjoyed a 25 percent growth in unique visitors in the last year. Some sites have doubled their user base77. And their demographic profiles now include users over 35. Social networking is no longer a tool just for high school and college students. On some networks, around 40 percent of users are over 3578.
While questions grow about consumer social networks' varying ability to monetize their hundreds of millions of users79, enterprises are looking at how they can harness the hierarchy-flattening, information-sharing, teambuilding power of social networks.
Large IT companies are planning on spending significant research and development (R&D) dollars in 2009 on social network applications and building new research centers that focus exclusively on enterprise social networks80.
Enterprise Social Networking (ESN) goes well beyond the consumer experience of social networking. It can include social discovery, social search, microblogging, visualization and new scalable architectures for social software, such as cloud computing. Enterprises are also experimenting with other ESN or Web2.0 applications, include wikis81, mash-ups82, online meetings, and syndicated feeds. And of course toolmakers are supporting ESN with their latest generation of content management tools83.
Some major telecommunications companies are already deploying social networking solutions internally. They are also including that technology as a solution, as part of their global service offerings, with plans to increase their efforts greatly in 200984. As providers of bandwidth and solutions they are keen on any application that requires more bits to be transmitted over their networks, and are heavily promoting ESN to their customers85. Wireless carriers and original equipment manufacturers (OEM) also see a strong future for ESN tools as mobile workers need to be part of the social network too86.
In 2009, governments are likely to implement top-down directives for their administrations to deploy ESN tools, both internally and as a method of interacting with their constituents87. Governments are obvious potential users of ESN: they tend to be large, distributed and focused on information sharing - the ideal environment for social networking solutions88. There are even public health applications for ESN tools89. Until now, government IT departments have been inherently conservative. However, as a new generation of politicians (who have used social networking tools to campaign successfully) move into office, adoption may become mandatory in certain departments.
While 2009 should see a growth in ESN, it will probably only be in a minority of leading-edge firms. During the year, the exact extent of adoption may still be unclear. Some commentators claim enterprises are generally not yet deploying social networks; various Fortune500 CEOs believe the opposite90.
While the dollar value may still be small, 2009 should see an explosion in ESN tools, trials and in-house deployment at industry-leading firms, with government as an early but influential adopter. ESNs are already being used in government departments in several of the G20 nations.
Bottom line
Social networks look to be a powerful tool and a way of tapping into the 'wisdom of crowds'. But the enterprise versions of these solutions are still being refined. IT departments need to develop the tools in such a way that they engender productivity. Measuring returns on investment for ESN will be challenging, as will balancing an enterprise's need to control a social network with its employees' desire for privacy.
On the other hand, most early versions of ESN look to be inexpensive, easy to roll out and require little employee training. Cash-constrained companies should look at ESN as a way of capturing value that already exists within an enterprise at a relatively low cost.
Telecommunications operators and IT solutions providers need to invest in ESN so they have the expertise and credibility to deploy these solutions if or when they become more broadly adopted, and start becoming a more significant source of revenues.
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