IBM towards Social Business

My perspective on how organisations implement social networking would be, ‘hmmm… not bad’. Lately, I came across one such organisation which has certainly gone an extra mile to impress its customers, and I really liked the way it had collaborated social technologies into its business. My post for this week would be on, how IBM has managed to use social platform as a base for socializing itself to the outside world. IBM is a popular multinational technology and consulting company, which has revolutionised computer engineering to a new level. The company has not only been successful in research and inventions, but also it has never failed in proving its presence worldwide. This definitely wouldn’t be possible without the proper implementation of the social platforms.

How has IBM developed into a Social business?

IBM has a community for developers, where individuals can share and learn from experts. This community reflects an overall experience of a social platform which comprises of blogs, wikis, forums, podcasts, events and a personalised profile for every user. The access to this community is publicly available which requires registration. With access to this community, one can participate in various discussions with IBM experts and other developers worldwide. You can have a look at the IBM developer’s community by referring the following link:

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/

Further, IBM has been developing various social collaboration solutions for business, through which employees can share ideas, insight and information in the enterprise level. This has empowered the management to take quick business decisions in an efficient manner. These products are named as ‘IBM Connections’, and they consist of diverse range of products to satisfy different business needs. ‘IBM Connections’ have been implemented in various Australian organisations which has resulted in better work experience, increase in productivity, proper human resource management and easy interaction between the employees. Following is a video of Australian Bureau of Statistics, Assistant Director Stephen Wellington, in which he has conveyed on how ‘IBM Connections’ has helped his business.

How has IBM made use of Blogs and Wikis?

Blogs:

IBM has managed internal and external blogs through its community. This has encouraged visitors and bloggers to socialize and share their blogs within the IBM community. Blog listing consists of the latest blogs and featured blogs, which are decided on the likes and votes from the community members. Also, they have got a platform where only the employees can advertise their blogs, which is known as ‘IBMer’s blog’. ‘IBMer’s blog’ generally consists of all the internal blogs, where the IBM employees present their blogs on technology, enterprise and IBM products. IBM has another blog named as ‘IBM software blog’ which is related to the software and business prospects of the company. In this blog; bloggers and visitors post articles, discussions, case studies and information on various softwares and packages that serve the growing business needs; to be more precise it’s a business and technology oriented blog. There’s another similar blog named as ‘IBM Impact blog’ which shares the same objective as the previous one. Following are the links to the various blogs of IBM:

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/roller-ui/homepage?lang=en

http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/

https://www-304.ibm.com/connections/blogs/bcde08b8-816c-42a8-aa37-5f1ce02470a9/?lang=en_us

https://www-304.ibm.com/connections/blogs/aim/?lang=en_us

Wikis:

Wiki’s is another social platform utilized by IBM to educate the employees and for public use. Wiki consists of ample of information pertaining to the products, technological concepts, business modules, guidelines, documentation, presentation, and audio/video tutorials. ‘IBM Connections Wiki’ is a platform, which has a collection of all the relevant wikis, and are publicly accessible to its customers who have implemented the product ‘IBM Connection’. IBM also has another Wiki for general topics which is a knowledgebase source for all its users. Following are the links, to two of the IBM Wikis:

http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/lcwiki.nsf

https://www-304.ibm.com/connections/wikis/home?lang=en_US

Following is a video on public Wikis by IBM:

Analysis on the publication ‘McKinsey Global Institute 2012’

After a keen research on IBM social technology implementation, I was able to co-relate with the few among the 10 value levers of social technology published by McKinsey. After my analysis, I derived the following conclusion on IBM way of handling its customers and employees:

i) Encourage consumers to share their views and thoughts towards the development of new products.

ii) Frequent analysis on the consumer requirements and feedback.

iii) Use of the product ‘IBM Connections’ has certainly paved the way for quick business decision making.

iv) Customer’s have been provided with support and assistance through social platforms like Blogs, forums and Wikis.

v) Interaction within and outside the organisation has been improved with the introduction of internal and external blogs and forums.

Considering all the above factors, I can say that IBM has been focusing on aspects such as ‘Product Development’, ‘Operations and Distributions’, ‘Customer Service’ and ‘Business Support’. With this I conclude that, IBM has certainly made the best use of social technology than its current competitors. Further, we can hope to witness more of a social technological oriented market in the near future.

And to all my blog visitors, thank you for going through my blog. Please leave a comment on the following query. According to you, what possible social platforms could replace the use of blogs and wikis? I would really appreciate any sort of suggestions and opinions.


References:

http://www.ibm.com/us/en/

Get amazed into the enterprise world of Amazon

I found the week 3 activity quite interesting, since we had to research on an organisation of our choice, to relate the implementation and benefits of Enterprise 2.0. So I took up this research by consulting an employee who works at ‘Amazon’. I discussed the various operations that take place within the organisation. To brief out on this organisation, Amazon is an American international E-Commerce company and is one of the world’s largest online retailer. The organisation is notable for selling softwares, games, electronics, apparels, furniture, jewellery etc.

After analysing the 10 ‘Value Levers’ of social technology published by McKinsey, I came into a conclusion that, Amazon has been implementing Enterprise 2.0 to sort out most of its operations in and out of the organisation. Be it a customer, seller or an employee, every operation is supported by an Enterprise module. This is the reason why Amazon is one of the successful online retailers worldwide, and all thanks to the pioneers behind the development of its business infrastructure, since they have wisely used Enterprise 2.0 in handling most of the business aspects of the organisation.

How has Amazon implemented Enterprise 2.0?

As per the discussion I had with the Amazon employee, the organisation utilizes Enterprise 2.0 mainly to focus on their Sellers, Customers and Employees. In order to manage all the business processes between these three entities it has developed three different platforms pertaining to Enterprise 2.0. These platforms are the base for support, marketing, enquiries, requests and a knowledgebase. The platforms are as follows:

i) Seller Forum

ii) Amazon Wiki

iii) Seller Central

The above Enterprise 2.0 implementations, serve the various functional areas in the business value chain of the organisation such as Operations and Distributions, Product Development, Marketing and Sales, Customer Service and Business Support. Following is a brief description on each of these platforms:

i) Seller Forum

This is like a forum generally for Sellers who would like to sell their products over Amazon. This platform specially serves as a communication medium between the sellers and the Amazon representatives. This forum basically offers services such as ‘general selling questions’, ‘help for new sellers’, ‘listing management and reports’, ‘questions on shipment’, ‘orders and customer service’.  'Customer Service' is the functional area which is taken care of in this platform. 

There are dedicated representatives who offer support to the authenticated sellers who are authorized to use this platform. Every seller has to create his/her profile before making use of this feature, so that the sellers required information is stored in the database for various business processes. You can visit the following link in order to view the ‘Seller Forum’.

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/index.jspa

ii) Amazon Wiki

Amazon wiki is accessible only to the employees within its organisation. Employees need to sign up and create his/her profile to access the functionalities of this platform. Amazon Wiki basically consists of all the business processes and products that are available within the organization. Employees get detailed information and knowledge on various business modules. There is also a specialized department which provides live support to the employees based on their departments and their work profile. This platform is not available publicly over the internet, since it consists of confidential information pertaining to the various business modules of the organisation. 'Product Development' and 'Business Support' are the major functional areas handled in this platform.

iii) Seller Central

Seller Central is the extended version of Seller Forum which was discussed earlier. This platform is specially used for marketing products by the seller. Sellers get essential tips from Amazon professionals on how to market their products in front of millions of online shoppers. It also provides support for the sellers to develop their own website to market and display their products. Using seller central the seller can manage his products, orders, payment, inventory and customers online. 'Operations', 'Distributions', 'Marketing and Sales' are the functional areas focused in this platform. You can visit the following link to view the Seller Central:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/homepage.html?

There is no second thought why Amazon has been one of the leading online retailers today. The way they utilize and implement Enterprise 2.0 in their business functional areas is truly remarkable. McKinsey’s 10 value levers of social technology are well reflected in the business functional areas of Amazon. Do you think there are any other organisations similar to Amazon which have been gaining success and popularity with the similar application of Enterprise 2.0? 

Reaching out to a global community

What if there were no social networking sites?

What would happen if popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter or Google+ were down for a couple of days? The answer is pretty simple. We would feel the re-existence of Stone Age! To justify this, we need not enter into a debate or an argument; all we can do is ask a simple question to ourselves, ‘Can I avoid using social networking? If yes, till when?’ 

Why do we need social networking?

Social networking has made us aware of the world we are living. Also, it has created a whole new world where we can share our views, thoughts and feelings with our friends and peers. Be it news, interaction, politics, learning or marketing, social networking has been the most effective means of spreading awareness amongst us. In other words social networking has been one of the prime needs for humanity to sustain in today’s society. So, when was the last time you made use of social networking in your life? Today? An hour ago? Or, are you using it right now?

Few of the social networking and media tools/sites I got familiar with recently J

Below are few of the social networking sites and tools I tried out lately, and I found them amazing.

1. Buffer

If you have accounts in various social networking sites then you should give a try to this social media tool. The specialty of this tool is that it allows you to share information in multiple social sites at once. It consists of other amazing features such as analytics on your social update, schedule your posts and receive constant updates through emails etc.  You can refer the following to access this tool:

https://bufferapp.com/

2. Triberr

I would personally recommend this website which could serve as a socializing platform for all bloggers. Using this website one could advertise his blog or share content through which he can gain more visitors. This website follows a hierarchical system for being a member of a tribe (community), where you can share and view posts of other members in the same tribe. The tribe leader can promote any member within the group which can give access to certain new privileges. If you are interested in taking your blog to the next level, you could refer the link and register in the following link:

http://triberr.com/

3. Pinterest

This social media site is especially for those who would like to market their products. Companies, entrepreneurs or individuals can ‘pin’ the images, videos, discussions and posts on their products which could attract followers. This strategy can certainly benefit everyone from large organisations to small scaled entrepreneurs by socializing with people over this social platform. Refer the following link to experience the look and feel of this amazing social media site:

https://www.pinterest.com/

Though there are plenty of other social networking and media sites available, the only flaw being how user friendly it is. We have already seen social networking sites which had gained instant popularity and then later witnessed downfall due to the scarcity of users (eg. Orkut). This was mainly because Facebook provided a better and easier user interface. In my opinion social networking has revolutionized the use of internet! It has helped people from different corners of the world to make a global impact.

Please comment your suggestions and opinions on this post. Thank you for reading and do watch the following short footage on the history of social networking:

http://content.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,710921182001_2037224,00.html

References:

1.http://webseo22.hubpages.com/hub/How-Social-Media-Has-Changed-the-World-Impact-of-Social-Media-on-Our-Lives
2.http://www.rantlifestyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/In-Stream-Mobile-Ads-are-Finally-Going-Native.jpg

3.http://derbycitysocialmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/social%20media.jpg

4.http://www.sys2k.com/insights/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Social-Media-Stress-Syndrome.jpg