Page 253 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

238 8 Social Enterprise and Other Social Commerce Topics

for business networking. The networks connect, for example, For details of these and other benefits, see Bughin and
sellers and buyers or employers and potential employees; (b) Chui (2013) and Section 8.2.
enterprise private networks, which operate inside compa- Enterprises that use social media extensively can reap the
nies, like in CEMEX in the opening case. These usually benefits found in the previous list and be transformed into
restrict membership to employees and sometimes to business social businesses. For details, see ibm.com/social-business/
partners. An example is USAA that has an internal social net- us-en.
work for employees who can ask for help from their peers; For how to select the best organizational model for a social
and (c) company-owned and hosted networks that are con- business, see Terpening (2015).
trolled by a company but open to the public, usually for
brand-related networking (e.g., Starbucks, Dell Computer). Obstacles and Limitations

Some limitations, such as security of information and informa-
The Benefits and Limitations of Enterprise tion pollution, slow down the growth of social enterprising. For
Social Networking details, see slideshare.net/norwiz/what-is-enterprise-20.

Social networking appeals to business users for many reasons.
For example, networking makes it easy to find people and dis- How Web 2.0 Tools Are Used by Enterprises
cover information about companies, understands the relation-
ships and communication patterns that make a company tick, Web 2.0 tools are used in different ways by various corpora-
and creates a common culture across large organizations. tions. Typical uses are: increasing speed of access to knowl-
edge; reducing communication costs; increasing speed of
Benefits of Enterprise Social Networking access to internal experts; decreasing travel costs; increasing
employee satisfaction; reducing operational costs; reducing
The major reasons an organization becomes a social enter- time to market for products/services; and increasing the num-
prise are the abilities to: ber of successful innovations for new products or services.
Some of the uses outside the enterprises include recruit-
ment, advice in problem-solving, joint design, collaboration
on supply chain issues, and marketing communication. For a
• Improve collaboration inside the enterprise and with comprehensive slide presentation on Enterprise 2.0, see slide-
business partners
• Facilitate knowledge distribution (increase access share.net/norwiz/what-is-enterprise-20. For an e-book, see
World Library (2015).
to specialized knowledge)
• Build better customer and employee relationships
• Facilitate recruiting and employee retention
• Increase business and marketing opportunities SECTION 8.1 REVIEW QUESTIONS
(e.g., meet new potential business partners and/or
1. Define social business and relate it to the social enterprise.
customers)
• Reduce operation, communication, and travel costs 2. How does IBM define social business?
3. What is a business network?
• Increase sales and revenue (e.g., more sales leads)
• Improve customer satisfaction 4. List five reasons why organizations want to become social
enterprises.
• Reduce marketing and advertising costs
• Improve employee and organizational performance
• Foster internal and external relationships
• Collect feedback from employees 8.2 BUSINESS-ORIENTED PUBLIC
• Build an effective workforce SOCIAL NETWORKING
• Improve decision-making capabilities including fore-
casting Social networking activities are conducted in both public
• “Spy” on competitors (intelligence gathering) and/or private social networking sites. For example, LinkedIn
• Find experts and advice (internally and externally) is a business-oriented public network, whereas Facebook is
• Improve customer service and CRM primarily a public social network used for socially oriented
• Accelerate innovation and competitive advantage activities. Facebook, however, allows its members to conduct
business-oriented activities.