 |
| Cross-Functional Social Media the Answer? |
After Gartner's Supply Chain Executive Summit earlier in June, I'm left considering my own social media strategy. There was a sharp contrast on the 'presence' of social media used at the event, used within supply chains, covered by Gartner, and used by B2B software providers in the ERP/SCM space. Some thoughts and observations from Gartner's event...
- Social Media as a means of supply chain collaboration with (at very least) customers, if not suppliers and global networks was entirely negligible, if not notably forced into a few places. As tweeted by the astute observation of @gcourtin, hopeful discussion on social media became a noticeable and big disappointment. Gartner (AMR) is the 'demand-driven' supply network (DDSN) pioneers and we now operate in a socially-connected consumer world. The year of social media as a supply chain intelligence vehicle (or buzz, or trend, at least) would have to wait.
- Social Media among application providers was also 'cloudy' at best. Leading ERP and SCM technology providers evangelized (or enabled vis-a-vis seemingly scripted customer testimonial) the social media application integration in their latest application capabilities. However, dialog and closer inspection showed disconnect between social media on the product side versus the company's own use of it as a collaboration tool among the very same Sales, Product, Marketing, and Support teams or extending it to the Customers they say should embrace it.
- Social Media's saving grace came from the industry practitioner side and perhaps an unlikely candidate in Vivek Kamath of defense leader Raytheon. Kamath praised the social media opportunity used at Raytheon to collaborate and educate tens of thousands of their global employees in his presentation "Creating Opportunities from Challenges: Attracting, Developing and Retaining Top Talent". In a world of talent churn, he noted how those that capture, share, and retain knowledge - as availed by social media - can outperform financial metrics of peers by a factor of 4x.
It's clear Social Media is in its infancy among 'mature' supply chain practitioners, technology providers, and analysts. What's also clear is that its reach, technical nuances, and collaboration power are vastly misunderstood and under-utilized.
As I look to improve my own social media methods, I have questions I seek answers to:
- Use social media at your company? Who owns, evangelizes or dominates its use?
- Can it truly get sales, marketing, product teams, etc. all on the same page?
- How does your company do it? Where did you start? What experience can you share?
- What big benefits or risks have you seen?
P.S. These views are all my own personal views, and certainly not my employer's.
http://xeesm.com/RoryKing
@RoryAKing
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/rory-king/0/992/6b4
Rory good post. To answer your first question, yes, social media can be leveraged for cooperation within the 4 walls of your business. Many tech firms now leverage Wikis to accelerate the user manual creation - the development team records their work and thoughts via a wiki. Once the product is completed...bam you have your user manual. I do believe we are not yet at a point where it has become second nature. It is similar to when email first made its way into corporate america "why do I need that, when I have my phone?" now we do not even think about emailing! It will take time, but the infusion of social media tools into the corporation is already underway.
ReplyDeleteRory,
ReplyDeleteI support cross functionality especially in product development!
I have worked for distributors in the past but now am taking the B2B experience, folding it with social media and heading back to these large but slow moving giants and the supply chain industry.
I see under $200 Million companies who are remaining flexible and innovative by using their extended team (includes customers very much) to listen and report for product development. One company here in Madison WI has developed an interesting consumer product validation and research company based on social connectivity to the consumer who is the product tester, the manufacturer who is interested in a dialogue with users as they offer comments on the products, and the manufacturer internal design team who has little or no time for the innovative product development much less the validation of how they got it right or wrong.
We need to keep cross functional and broad stakeholders committees involved in the strategic social media effort. We need for the B2B companies to recognize social media may be for B2C but Social Business is for B2B!
Wendy, partner, Social Business Consulting Group
xeesm.com/wendysoucie
Great summary of the scene and a loaded questions.
ReplyDeleteBusinesses spend quite some money for market research and accept that the research can only cover a small segment - now social media presents the market sentiments, needs and wants of the most vocal and influential player on a silver plate. But using that information only for "marketing" is a wasted opportunity. :)
Axel
http://xeesm.com/AxelS
I believe its both possible and necessary. Social media is actually pointing out a big issue in many organizations today. A fast growing organization might grow itself out, when departments turn to live their own life without an organizational informational flow. Sales, marketing, service and support, product management and so on do not work properly without influences of the surrounding departments. To manage a cross functional Social Media Team is to prove the healthiness of the organization itself.
ReplyDeleteGreat post and thought-provoking questions, Rory. From an internal communication perspective, we are using Salesforce Chatter with decent levels of adoption in sales and marketing. We also have a Jive Software-hosted community that enables inter-departmental collaboration internally (as well as with our customers), though we are just scratching the surface of potential there.
ReplyDeleteIn general, I believe high adoption rates for and acceptance of social media-based collaboration will only occur if it becomes an institutionalized process. It's all about change management, and we know that doesn't happen overnight.
To have any chance at success, companies should make their chosen social media tools required communication vehicles. With that said, organizations must also take an open-minded, common-sense approach to social media as internal communication; if something isn't adding efficiency, it should be re-examined and potentially replaced.
Lauren Bossers
http://twitter.com/laurenbossers
Great post Rory.
ReplyDeleteIn response, the ship has sailed! With so many crews and passengers on it, it is tough to simply abandon it now; we want to avoid the repeat of Titanic. :)
The key is about CHANGE MANAGEMENT and that does not happen overnight...but trust me, the time will come.
I'm hopefull that this will happen and soon! and this is because I see the ppotential that this can bring to companies. On the other side of the spectrum is understanding the intricacies of change management, this is a tough bridge to cross. When UC came into the limelight (Unified Communications) it too brought a similar promise as due to the face that SIP could cut accross technology silos and therefore it allowed for the enablement of true collaboration of different groups and systems. Though the technology could do it, it was not embraced by IT in this way nor the users so the value is yet to be reached. I hope that with the push of Social coming from the consumer place... IT will have no choice but to change and users will take it from there...
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Rory. There's a tremendous opportunity for supply chain providers who are leveraging Social Media. Early adopters will clearly have a competitive advantage here.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post since also Enterprise 2.0 vendors are now claiming the Social Business as their space. However there is still a huge gap between what they promote on the product side and their own corporate use and understanding of social media, as you point out for the Supply Chain vendors.
ReplyDeleteWalter Adamson
http://xeesm.com/walter
Thanks for the background and the challenge questions, Rory.
ReplyDeleteMarketing people have, it seems to me, dominated the general discussion about social media for a while now - hence the calls at times from others to drop the word "media" from discussion of "social whateveryouwantittobe" and the not wholly satisfactory use of the term "social business"(which outside the US can connote "philanthropic" or "social good purposed" business without specific reference to social media by whatever name).
So if you accept that to date the marketing people have dominated discussion and laid down rules, it is surely not surprising that others are not rushing to join the party. Add to that some confusion about terminology and connotations and it looks like a bit of a long and winding road ahead to get the concept of cross-functionality of social media, not just in supply chain organizations, fully accepted and fully operational.
I agree with LaBoss. As a small intelligence-focused company I am always looking at new ways that our senior employees could rapidly impart knowledge and experience to our newer employees. I had never really seen social media as a game changer for on-going education but the more I see how companies are leveraging it across their departments, the more I am convinced that it could be a very useful tool for on-boarding and ongoing employee development.
ReplyDelete