Friday, January 30, 2009

Enterprise 2.0

Space_shuttle_enterprise Andrew McAfee defines Enterprise 2.0 as “the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers”.

According to his definition, CRM 2.0 is part of Enterprise 2.0 because he extends the use of social software to partners and customers – interesting thought. For me though, Enterprise 2.0 is a (crucial) part of a CRM 2.0 strategy, but not the other way around.

To successfully implement a CRM 2.0 strategy, it is necessary to change the corporate culture towards collaboration, co-creation and transparency - Using the Web 2.0 tools within the corporate is a logical and required step.

Good thing is that Generation Y will ‘naturally' bring some of this culture into the enterprise, as they grew up with the Web 2.0 and do not have the reservation that Gen X and the Baby Boomers have. Of course social software within an enterprise has higher requirements towards reliability and security, which might disqualify some of the services that are already out there and are widely used. Salesforce.com seamlessly integrating Google Docs is a brilliant example of how enterprise 2.0 (within a CRM 2.0 strategy) could look like. Microsoft Office Live might follow up, soon.

I am pretty sure we will see more and more companies using channels like Blogs, Twitter or Instant Messaging. Not only externally but also internally. Missing standards make interoperability between the different media and among the different platforms difficult, though.

4 comments:

  1. Great blog! I couldn't agree more.

    -Adam

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  2. While I can't say that Web 2.0 is a requirement for all businesses, I do agree that using it is a logical, next step for them all.

    Also, it's funny how, early on, similar technologies will struggle to differentiate themselves from one another, which, seams to, eventually lead to a struggle over a standard to adopt.

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  3. Ben,

    Thanks for the comment. I agree that enterprise 2.0 is not a requirement for all companies out there. (so is CRM 2.0)
    As always it depends on what you're doing (vertical, corporate focus) and how you're doing it (corporate strategy). I am pretty sure companies can get along without any enterprise 2.0 related activities and still do well.
    An example might be production focused corporates. If there is very little IT involved, communication and collaboration happens the good old way - no need to think about enterprise 2.0. But if you have a mission critical IT and many employees working with it, enterprise 2.0 can increase efficiency and change corporate culture for the better.

    Regarding the standards, I am pretty sure there will evolve some technological standards at least. Driven by the big names and the OpenSource community. There will never be THE one standard, though... as in many other areas as well.

    Cheers,
    Guido

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  4. I'm glad that you mentioned the OpenSource community, Guido. Lately, even the 'big names' throughout the tech industry are starting to get more involved with OpenSource. Hopefully, their intentions are as much to drive the industry as it is to keep their feet in the water.

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