[I have been publishing the results of my three months global research on state of culture, business and technology as an assignment from SAP. This 4th Chunk is the Business Analysis section. If you missed previous Sections, please click on Part 1, Overview; Part 2, 7 Key Findings; and Part 3 Findings by World Region.
The survey itself will continue as an ongoing project. If you think you have something to contribute to this conversation, please ping me at ShelIsrael1@gmail.com.]
4. Analysis
The following are my subjective observations in various key areas, based on my SAP Global Survey findings as well as the additional conversations, mentioned earlier.
A. Business
Over the past two years the business community has moved through the phases of denial, dismissal, contempt and hostility regarding social media. Now they are beginning to embrace them. In some parts of the world, this is still occurring at a snail’s pace. In certain pockets of the US, there is an emerging sense of urgency being demonstrated. I believe this is a wise course that will gain momentum elsewhere in the world over the next few years.
The Pain Point
Many of the barriers toward business acceptance have diminished, but one remains. It is one that needs to be addressed on a strategic level and it’s focal point is middle management. While at the c-level and junior levels, there appears to be increasing enthusiasm for social media, middle managers are often more resistant. They often occupy the corporate seat where change causes the greatest pain. On one hand, middle managers are being prodded to creatively initiate new programs. On the other; they are held responsible for continued profitability and efficiency of existing ones. To them, social media can feel like a time-sucking distraction from their primary responsibility.
The Entry Point
With this in mind, a good number of otherwise diverse companies have found it a wise course to determine a social media low-pain point of entry, one where disruption is minimal, risk factors few and deadline pressures soft. Internal wikis requiring large numbers of employee collaboration work well. A Massachusetts company’s first project was a wiki to organize a sports team two years ago. They now have several public blogs and are integrating online video with them.
Like the Massachusetts company, a great many enterprise efforts start internally.
What to Measure?
A second set of barriers involves revolves around the insatiable enterprise hunger for statistical evaluations . How do we measure the success of a social media program. How do we compare it to traditional marketing efforts? What’s the ROI on a blog? What are the industry standards? Point me to a few Best practice efforts.
Social media is, in fact, in a dynamic stage and so are the quantification efforts. There are some such as Google Analytics. More sophisticated programs are being pioneered by companies such as BuzzLogic. But they have not yet achieved any great level of sophisticated measurement.
Why is measurement so vexing to so many?
For one thing, the issue of what should be measured remains a challenge. While a traditional media relations campaign may look at newspaper article impressions, blogs work differently. The newspaper is a one-directional publisher. A blogger is part of a network, one containing 75 million or so nodes. A blogger can have very few readers and be extremely influential. Take for example a political blogger with only three readers. Measurement tools would determine this blogger to be irrelevant. But what of those three readers were the presidents of the US and Russia as well as the Chinese Prime Minister?
ROI is even more difficult to measure. Social media has to do with conversations, about getting closer to customers. It is no easier to measure the ROI of a blog or an online video clip, than the value of a good business conversation. For that matter, how do you measure the value of a CEO spending four days traveling to and from and attending a conference, where he speaks on a panel for 15 minutes?
Social Media is just starting. In general business, it’s adoption is just now starting. There has not yet been sufficient time for Best Practices. There are only good ideas, some of which will be refined and evolve into Best Practices. Likewise, standards usually come in to play once a technology matures. Social media is currently moving too dynamically to be standardized.
A Hilly World
This Survey made clear that the world is not so flat as Thomas Friedman’s book implied. But it is getting hillier. The Internet has made geography less relevant that the seller is in Chennai and the buyer is in San Francisco. But social media cannot replace the face-to-face experience. While the culture of business transaction is becoming globalized, local cultures remain diverse. Language remains an enormous barrier, which I will discuss in a few paragraphs.
A second factor of Global Hilliness is that the decisions are rolling downhill, from headquarters to the front lines. One Survey respondent noted that the same phenomenon has made armies more efficient because decisions are made fastest where the action occurs.
This, obviously, restructures the corporation in function, if not organization. Authority and influence are becoming decentralized and the implications to a global enterprise are significant.
Internal & recruiting benefits
The SAP Global Survey also showed the most immediate and universal benefit of social media in the enterprise often happens internally, not externally. Even employees who do not use social media themselves seem to enjoy the fact that management trusts them sufficiently to have the option. There is also evidence that allowing social media is likely to attract the best and brightest of the next generation. One high schooler told me, “I just won’t join a company that will not let me blog.
Corporate credibility
The SAP Global Survey confirmed what has often been reported. People trust what is communicated by everyday people online more than they trust authorities being quoted in traditional media. As one interviewee put it, “I trust companies that are open and honest with me. I will pay more for their products and services because I can talk with and about them on the Internet.
[Next: Analysis of communications issues]
