Have you heard the term "Social Enterprise"? What does it mean to you? How about your organization? Salesforce.com talks about creating the "Social Enterprise" - you buy in? Is Salesforce taking the lead on this or off course?
In looking at Salesforce.com vision, and as I understand it, the social enterprise that they envision leverages collaboration tools, mobile technologies and social media to enhance interactions with your customers. If you take it a step further, it could be internal and external customers. So it this beneficial to the organization or significant risk? I believe there are rewards to it, risks and costs that can be significant.
By definition, a "social enterprise" would be one that is very good at using technology to increase brand recognition, to provide the tools for customers to do business with you more easily, and to provide some value that your competitors can't provide. To be successful with this, it takes skills, talent, a strong strategy and vision. Your organization ready?
How do you hire these talents then? Do you have an advantage with your customers or potential employees? It seems obvious, but with consumerization of IT, employees want to bring in a variety of devices and connect them to company systems and networks. They may be coming from companies that already allow this, or they may be younger hires who are used to being connected through a variety of platforms all the time. There comes some of the risk we can talk about.
The CIO needs the practicality in determining which technologies to invest in, but there is also the softer requirement to make sure the workplace is more attractive to younger and tech-savvy talent. Opens the door for that bring your own device (BYOD) to work discussion. There are legal, security, and productivity discussions to have, not to mention some HR concerns. A topic you can't ignore anymore or hope will go away.
You will also find that your employees now want access to collaboration tools, from wikis to social media. But there has to be that balance. There must be a strong sense of practicality. That is, we don't develop technology for technology's sake, but invest in and support technology that addresses business needs. Go capture those business capabilities - and map your IT strategy to them.
Facebook, Twitter and all these social media applications - a benefit or distraction? How about internal tools, like Yammer, Chatter or MS new tool? Does your staff really need to update their Facebook site during work hours? I think the value is yet to be seen. Your customers will use Facebook to endorse or complain about your product or services - now there is a place to engage your customers. Now there is value.
Keep it positive!
Scott Arnett
scott.arnett@charter.net
About Me
- Scott Arnett
- Scott Arnett is an Information Technology & Security Professional Executive with over 30 years experience in IT. Scott has worked in various industries such as health care, insurance, manufacturing, broadcast, printing, and consulting and in enterprises ranging in size from $50M to $20B in revenue. Scott’s experience encompasses the following areas of specialization: Leadership, Strategy, Architecture, Business Partnership & Acumen, Process Management, Infrastructure and Security. With his broad understanding of technology and his ability to communicate successfully with both Executives and Technical Specialists, Scott has been consistently recognized as someone who not only can "Connect the Dots", but who can also create a workable solution. Scott is equally comfortable playing technical, project management/leadership and organizational leadership roles through experience gained throughout his career. Scott has previously acted in the role of CIO, CTO, and VP of IT, successfully built 9 data centers across the country, and is expert in understanding ITIL, PCI Compliance, SOX, HIPAA, FERPA, FRCP and COBIT.
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