Selection of a suitable Social Business platform could often be a daunting task for organizations. What all should be considered and evaluated in a social business product? List is long and confusing too.My New Post- 'Social Business platform: evaluation checklist' covers 10 key check-points for assessing a social business platform.

1. “A conference call = 1 person talking and 26 people continuing to do their email.”- Eddie Obeng.
Social Business platform
evaluation checklist
Sanjay Abraham
Linkedin:in.linkedin.com/in/sanjayabraham. Twitter: @asanjay100 email: abraham@ctprd.com
Social Business platform: Evaluation Checklist
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2. Social Business platform: evaluation checklist
Business is on a change mode. We are in a Social Economy today and the Hobson’s
choice for Enterprises is to Evolve or to Extinct.
Social Business could be a change engine and could directly contribute into the top and
bottom-line of any organization. According to Mckinsey, USD 1.3 trillion of annual value
could be unlocked using social business. It could radically improve strategic alignment,
innovation
&
productivity
in
any
enterprise.
It
could
enhance
collaboration,
communications & knowledge sharing, align Employees to organization culture, enable
crowdsourcing of content & ideas, make Q&A faster, locating experts/ mavens easier,
reduce service / support costs, grow brand advocacy etc. Benefits are many so no
wonder social is top priority for the CXO bracket across all businesses.
While there are evangelists who are gung-ho driving Social Business as a ‘transformation
Engine’ and they have many success stories to show case too, many are still
apprehensive - how successful the social initiative would actually be? Whether it would
really add some value to the business at all? Gartner estimates that 80% of social
business efforts will not achieve the intended benefits due to inadequate leadership and
an over-emphasis on technology.
The choice of product could make or mar your social business initiatives. A good Social
Business platform could make the journey to being Social a lot more easy. Selection of a
suitable Social Business platform could often be a daunting task for organizations. What
all should be considered and evaluated in a social business product? List is long and
confusing too. Following are the 10 key check-points to assess if a social business
product is right for you.
Any good Social Business product should have/ enable/ provide (may be through other
partners) following features.
1. Real collaboration to get work done. Ask your vendor whether his social product
has an integrated communication system for seamless collaboration. All types of
communication viz. chat, text, voice, video etc should be available right from the
Social Business platform: Evaluation Checklist
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3. ‘news feeds’ of the platform. If a user sees an update and needs to connect with
others over any of the channels, he should be able to, without him necessary to
switch to additional resources like his company PBX or mobile phone. The users
should ideally have an ‘Omnichannel’ experience when they use the social platform.
Social’s purpose is to get ‘work done’ and not just to provide another siloed
communication channel which people hardly ever use. Remember it’s all about
speed, ease and convenience for getting work done. If that’s not happening…It’s not
done. Most of the ESN fail because they are just vanilla products where people could
just
update
status
and
not
get
any
real
work
done.
2. Task Management and proper tracking of work. - Business is all about different
people doing their assigned tasks- efficiently & timely. Productivity at work is not
possible if there is no delegation of authority and proper tracking of tasks assigned.
Often reason of failure at the workplace could be attributed to 'Stakeholders'
disengagement' so a Social Business platform should foster teamwork. It should also
reduce the email traffic within the organization; lower down number of meetings held
and off course the quantum of phone calls. A collaboration platform should help
people
work
on
a
project
efficiently
without
any
time
or
cost
overruns.
3. Integration with existing business systems/ workflow- Today workplace is
a farrago/ confused mixture of business software and applications. ESN could be the
secret sauce to bind all these apps to get the desired outcome. Success of an ESN
would depend a lot on how integral it is to the everyday works of the employees. A
major reason for ESN failure is that it too just like other applications has become a
silo within the enterprise. Using it just as a separate channel for communication
won’t add much value. People use systems like ERP, CRM etc for their daily work
done. ESN should gel well with the workflow to provide a seamless experience to the
employees to work, perform and be productive. Using ESN an employee should be
able to solve his real pain points. For instance reduce turn-around-time (TAT) in case
of an insurance employee, reduce call-handle-time (CHT) in case of a call center
employee, increased ARPU (Average revenue per unit) in case of a telecom sales
employee
etc.
ESN
is
where
real
work
should
get
done.
4. Content Collaboration, Governance/ EFSS (Enterprise File Sync &
Sharing) - Today 50% employees of an enterprise are overwhelmed by content.
Social Business platform: Evaluation Checklist
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4. 70% companies suspect their employees use unsanctioned file sharing methods.
With the Consumerization of IT and BYOD becoming common at the work place,
content sharing with security and compliance is a major challenge. Most of the
companies today are haunted by the ‘Dropbox’ problem. Unsanctioned devices and
cloud services often put the enterprises at risk. A successful social strategy isn’t
complete without a safe & secure content collaboration strategy in place. How people
would share documents securely in a social environment without using unwarranted
storage system is an important question to be answered. Further issues like how to
ensure synchronization of content so that there is ‘single version of truth’ for all the
users
is
critical.
5. Enterprise Mobility- BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is changing the dynamics at
the workplace. Especially the GenY/ Millennials who use Smartphones & Tablets at
work want a more flexible & freelancing work environment. The Social platform too
should be mobility enabled. It should be accessible across different mobile platforms
like Android, Blackberry, Microsoft Embedded, Windows phone etc. and should
support features like Mobile Content Management so that creation & upload of
content built in HTML5 for customers, sales & marketing people is possible. It should
enable integration facilities so that activities like syncing contacts, managing leads &
campaigns
etc
could
be
done
on
mobile.
6. Community empowerment- Communities Management is key to social success.
Communities both internal & external contribute greatly into better engagement.
More than a technology or platform, a Social Community is about people. There
could be technology worth millions but if people are not engaging, the social
communities are bound to become virtual ghost towns. The platform should enable
advocacy
to
empower
communities.
7. Analytics- What can’t be measured could be easily missed. Social Platform
should provide analytics/ Data Visualizations for the managers and other stake
holders measure social success. Each community should be measured based on KPIs
based on Social best practices and key metrics. Use analytics, dashboards and data
visualizations to have insights about how the community is fairing, where it lacks and
what needs to be done.
Social Business platform: Evaluation Checklist
© 2013 CTPRD. All rights reserved.

5. 8. Engagement Loyalty- Building a Social platform is not enough. There should be
special efforts to enhance ‘loyalty’ to increase employee productivity, customer retention
& partner engagement. A good social platform should have features like gamification.
Gamification is about using game elements & techniques for better engagement. It could
help to motivate participation, engagement, and loyalty. It’s not just about the platform,
technology, badges or leader-boards but it’s the secret sauce for overall organizational
success through better participation of the stakeholders in the key business processes. A
good Social Business Platform should support game mechanics and gaming solutions to
enhance engagement loyalty.
9. Foster Innovation- Innovation is the life blood of an enterprise’s growth. One of
the key purposes of the ESN is to enable ideation & innovation. Remember, innovation is
a continual process NOT an event. The ESN is expected to bridge the gap of gathering
employees, partner’s and customer’s ideas for organizations success, growth and
competitive advantage. It should help actively capture, share, and rate new ideas for
actionable innovation and measurable business outcomes. It should foster collaborative
thinking and help in metrics driven evaluation of ideas. Digital suggestion boxes cannot
rightly fulfill the innovation needs.
10. Onboarding and Learning- People are the most important asset of any
organization. IDC estimates that the average worker spends up to 35% of their time just
looking for information. Traditional Learning systems & Onboarding methods don't work
any more. New hires & employees are often bombarded with many ‘PowerPoint slides’
continuously which only creates more confusion. Today all industries are facing the
problems of employee churn, poor employee engagement and Onboarding. Use of Social
Business in people management could radically improve the HR processes.
It’s the Law of Inertia that people naturally resist change. Social Business is not just
about a technology or platform- it demands change of culture within an organization. It
will happen only when individual goals are aligned with the larger objective of the
organization. Are we ready for the big rewards that Social Business assures for
business? Do you want to assess- how ready is your enterprise to leverage on Social
Business?
Enterprise Clinic could help you discover these answers.
CONNECT TO
KNOW MORE
Social Business platform: Evaluation Checklist
© 2013 CTPRD. All rights reserved.

6. Suggested additional readings from Sanjay Abraham-
Social Project Management- Engaging for success.
Social Enterprise- Creating value at all interfaces.
Driving “People Excellence” through Social Onboarding.
Social Governance is Smart Governance
Business of today has to be social engaged.
EFSS- Building a successful content collaboration strategy
Driving engagement loyalty through Gamification
Lets not make our social communities- virtual ghost towns.
For more follow: http://sanjayabraham.wordpress.com/
Sanjay Abraham is an ‘Enterprise Solutions Consulting, Product Marketing & Business
Development’ professional. He staunchly believes, 'Digital Transformation' could
radically change the way business is done today and that presently Enterprises get just
43% value from existing technologies. His areas of expertise & interest include
Enterprise Collaboration & Mobility, EFSS, Analytics, Enterprise Social- Social Business,
Social Intranet, Social Onboarding, Social Communities, Enterprise Innovation
Management, Social Product Life Cycle Management PLM, Social Project
Management, Gamification & Engagement Loyalty.
Sanjay holds a Bachelors in Engineering (Computer Science) and a PG Diploma in Business Management. He has
worked with top names in the IT sector like Avaya GCL & Mahindra Satyam. His client list includes top bracket
names across Banking, Insurance, Retail, Telecom, BPO/ITeS, Public Services and other verticals. His contact
coordinates are:
Linkedin:in.linkedin.com/in/sanjayabraham. Twitter: @asanjay100 email: abraham@ctprd.com
Social Business platform: Evaluation Checklist
© 2013 CTPRD. All rights reserved.