Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Interesting concept - spending based on Social Business Maturity

I recently read a slideshare presentation from Jeremiah Owyang entitled How Corporations should Prioritize Social Business Budgets.  I found it very interesting, and thought provoking.  Here are a few insights ...
  • 'Overall budgets increase as social business matures.'  This is counter to typical business cost curves.  The traditional theory is that a company can find and implement cost improvements as they mature and become more efficient.  It's interesting to think about how to 'sell' this concept to the finance team.  Perhaps Social Business investments should  increase as a 'migration' from traditional spending as ROI  becomes more evident.  The age-old challenge still exists ... how to stop work in 'the way we have always done things' projects in favor of new Social Business.  
  • 'As social business matures, team sizes grow but spread cross-functionally across the enterprise.'   As companies think about staffing requirements, it's interesting to think about scalability and long term sustainability.  Even though dedicated teams may be more efficient in the short term, are they affordable as a long term strategy?  Perhaps Social Business should just a part of everyone's job.  It's like the analogy of using the telephone or instant messaging ... social capabilities are part of the tool kit that employees have to enable them to do their job better.
  • 'To scale, organizations organize differently as they mature.'    It is interesting to think about a centralized or decentralized model for scaling.  Ultimate Social Business success is when it is completely integrated into a companies processes, including HR, Legal, Finance, Strategy, etc.  This requires a culture shift to promote open sharing, with a realization that open dialog will result in improved business results.  
The entire presentation is worth a read ... thanks to Jeremiah for sharing it openly with the broad community.

2 comments:

  1. Nice Post Debbie. You picked out the key points from Jeremiah's post. For me, your second to last sentence is so important. Quote: "This requires a culture shift to promote open sharing, with a realization that open dialog will result in improved business results." Established companies that try to become a Social Business without realizing that it requires a cultural transformation will fail.

    Looking forward to more posts from you Debbie!

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  2. Great post Debbie. Internal cultural transformation is the largest hurdles for most organizations (especially older ones). We are all penguins standing on the edge of an iceberg, we will eventually jump or be pushed into the water. Educating others on how to swim in these social waters and become comfortable in the transition is key.

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