Social collaboration in transition

Social collaboration in transition

September 2015

Angela Ashenden

Free report

A snapshot of adoption and market maturity

Table of Contentspage page page page

Creating an open, networked and interactive organisation

The survey results About the survey Your next steps

2© MWD Advisors 2015

3 5 12 15

Creating an open, networked and interactive organisationAs markets become more global, organisations become increasingly distributed and dispersed, customers’ expectations about the products and services they receive become more demanding, businesses are increasingly changing the systems they use to operate in order to compete more effectively, drive new business opportunities, and stand out from the crowd. Social collaboration technologies offer opportunities to invigorate organisations: providing more open, flexible kinds of platforms through which work can get done, information can flow, and people can interact to drive ideas forward.

Technology enabling cultural change

Social collaboration technology is found in an increasing number of places. It might be embedded in an online community platform, an Enterprise Social Network (ESN), a microblogging tool, a 'social intranet', or even within an existing business application suite (such as Salesforce.com applications or Microsoft Office 365).

However, successful social collaboration requires more than simply implementing technology; it demands a focused strategy and long-term business change investment, supported by an engaged and proactive leadership.


Social collaboration is the application of social tools and techniques to support the creation of a more open, networked and interactive organisation. Social tools revolve around features such as user profiles, the ability to comment and create open conversations, and the ability to 'follow' users, conversations and topics.

How social collaboration is changingIn a study carried out in July 2015, MWD Advisors asked participants about the level of interest in – and adoption of – social collaboration technologies within their organisations. As well as exploring the things that had acted as drivers to those who’ve already taken their first steps with social collaboration, the survey aimed to compare the concerns of those who have not yet implemented the technology with the real-life challenges experienced by those who have.

Social collaboration is moving beyond the “early adopter” phase


Within our survey group, roughly a third of organisations have implemented, or are currently implementing, social collaboration technology. A further third are considering an investment in social collaboration.

The social collaboration technology marketplace is starting to mature, with the hype that once dominated this space being left behind.

The benefits of creating a more open, networked organisation through implementing social collaboration are becoming more widely recognised, and social collaboration success stories can now be found in many different industries, from engineering to retail, from financial services to education. These help to build confidence and inspire others to explore social collaboration opportunities for themselves.

Yes, we have already implemented social collaboration technology

25%

Yes, we have chosen technology but it is not rolled out yet8%

No, but it’s an area we’re investigating30%

No, and we have no current

plans to do so37%

Q: Have you already invested in social collaboration technology?

33%

47%

20%

< 1,000 employees1,000-10,000 employees> 10,000 employees

73%

20%

7%

1-100 employees100-1,000 employees> 1,000 employees

Adoption of social collaboration is expanding beyond the largest organisations


Yes, we have implemented social collaboration technology

No, but it’s an area we’re investigating

Of those who told us the size of their organisations, almost half of those who have already implemented social collaboration have more than 1,000 employees.

The benefits for large organisations of social collaboration focus on better-connecting distributed teams, and helping to overcoming complex and often obstructive organisational hierarchies to improve the flow of information and aid agility.

Looking ahead, we are seeing small and medium-sized businesses investigating the opportunities presented by social collaboration, with a different set of benefits driving this interest.

The first wave of social collaboration adopters sought to improve knowledge and information sharing, but our survey indicates that the next wave is focused on driving innovation and improving employee engagement.

The understanding of social collaboration’s potential in delivering these latter benefits is likely to be a major factor behind the growing interest among smaller organisations.

Drivers for social collaboration adoption are shifting


Other

Improving employee engagement levels

Providing a platform to support social learning

Improving communications between senior leaders and employees

Connecting and unifying a disconnected organisation

Finding new ways to drive innovation

Updating out-of-date technology

Improving knowledge and information sharing

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Already invested in social collaborationConsidering investing in social collaboration

Q: What’s your primary driver for investing?

Getting buy-in remains a key challenge for adopters

Among those who have already implemented social collaboration, getting buy-in – both at the senior executive and middle management levels – remains a major hurdle. Maintaining success over time is also taxing, and was the most commonly referenced challenge.

Potential adopters highlighted, budgetary concerns most (32%). Only 10% cited concerns about misuse, and only 5% worried about getting buy-in from IT.


Other

Adoption dropping off after a period of time.

Fears among senior leaders about letting employees post freely on the platform

Maintaining interest in the initiative among leaders over time.

Getting agreement/investment to support the adoption management and business change

process.

Convincing middle managers that this is a worthwhile use of people’s time

Expanding adoption beyond the early adopter stage

Getting senior-level buy-in for the initiative in the first place

0% 5% 10% 15% 20%

1%

8%

12%

13%

15%

17%

17%

18%

* Weighted results

Q: What have been the top 3 challenges in your initiative?

Lack of knowledge remains a key obstacle to social collaboration adoption

Looking at those who are not yet considering social collaboration, it seems that this is not primarily because they are against the idea; rather it’s a clear acknowledgement that they simply don’t have enough information to make a decision.

Evidently there is also a question of budget, and in some cases there is a view that existing technologies are sufficient.


Other

We don’t think social collaboration will bring benefits in our organisation.

Our existing collaboration technologies are adequate for our business.

We don’t have the budget to focus on this right now.

I/we don’t know enough about the benefits of social collaboration to make a decision on it.

0% 10% 20% 30% 40%

4%

4%

22%

37%

37%

Although social collaboration hype may have passed for the most part, this clearly has not yet been replaced with a wholesale understanding of the role and value of social collaboration technology.

Q: Why isn’t social collaboration a priority for you at present?

Where social collaboration does not yet reach, email remains king

Among those not yet exploring social collaboration, the most common collaboration technology is of course email. More surprising: only 85% of our respondents cited email as a current collaboration tool.

For document collaboration, shared file servers and document management systems are prominent, with IM and web conferencing being the most-used communications-based collaboration tools.


Other

Audio conferencing tools

Video conferencing tools

Web conferencing tools

Instant messaging

Document management systems

Shared file servers

Email

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

4%

11%

19%

26%

30%

30%

37%

85%

Q: What technologies do you currently use for collaboration?

About the survey

In July 2015 we carried out an online survey with a group of 105 business professionals.

We asked this group questions about their adoption of social collaboration technologies, as well as their experiences, challenges and concerns relating to its implementation.

The chart above shows the distribution of the 105 organisations that responded in terms of employee numbers.

Taking the pulse of social collaboration market maturity


1-20 em-ployees

20%20-100

employees6%

100-500 employees

5%500-1,000 employees

5%1,000-10,000 employees

11%More than 10,000

employees6%

Data not provided

48%

Your next steps

Start atwww.mwdadvisors.com/tools/

Understand and accelerate your collaboration capability maturity

There's no doubt that improving levels of collaboration can bring significant business benefits, including better sharing of knowledge; driving innovation and business differentiation; supporting distributed teams; and building better relationships with partners and customers. Are you on the right path?

The MWD Advisors analyst team has created an innovative set of free online tools that you can use to help guide your capability investment and implementation decisions.

Each tool is focused on a particular capability, but all of them will provide you with information, insight and advice you need based on the unique context of your own organisation.

Complete our simple online self-assessment questionnaire and get a personalised strategy action plan to take you to the next level of collaboration maturity.


Social collaboration in transition

Technology

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