Social Collaboration

Engage with customers, partners, and employees to drive greater productivity, efficiency, and innovation  

Driving results with business networks

The people network

On a smarter planet, inter-connectivity goes beyond connecting computers and smart devices. The advance of Web 2.0 and social networking technologies has now shifted the focus to people networks: It's as much about and relationships as it is about the technologies.

People are using social networking in staggering numbers. The world currently spends 110 billion minutes on social networks and blog sites per month. This equates to 22 percent of all time spent online.1

Pioneering organizations see opportunity in this shift. They are integrating social collaboration capabilities into their strategies, operations, and processes. Whether it’s with customers, partners, or employees, these organizations use collaboration tools to improve efficiency, solve problems, create opportunities, boost productivity, and drive innovation that makes them more competitive and successful.

Real results

- Berlitz (US) Corporation is using portal, social networking software for business, and real-time collaboration solutions to break down traditional communication boundaries and to accelerate the development of higher quality products. 2

- Construction firm VCC (US) empowers project managers with a social collaboration solution from IBM that contributes to a 40 percent year-over-year increase in new business. 3

- Celestica is an electronics manufacturer finding efficiencies through a collaborative development solution. In one case, Celestica has identified a US $40 million savings opportunity. 4

Become a people business

According to IBM, 95 percent of what are termed standout organizations will focus more on getting closer to the customer5 over the next five years and 57 percent are more likely to allow their people to use social and collaborative tools6.

It’s not a coincidence. Leading organizations are using social collaboration to delight customers, to drive innovation, and to bring out the best in their business networks and employees.

IBM has the tools and expertise to help you maximize the value of social collaboration in business environments, including profiles, blogs, wikis, bookmarking, tagging, activities, communities, shared files, team spaces with content management tools, enterprise instant messaging, online meetings, audio and video chat, email and calendaring, delivered on premises or in the cloud.

Sources:

1. Nielsen News, "Social Networks/Blogs Now Account for One in Every Four and a Half Minutes Online." (US) June 15, 2010.

2. Berlitz taps intelligence of global workforce for best product quality (US), February 22, 2011

3. Leading construction company penetrates new markets (US), January 17, 2011

4. Celestica streamlines SAP application development with IBM Rational and Lotus solutions, February 16, 2011

5. Capitalizing on Complexity, Insights from the Global Chief Executive Officer Study (US), IBM, May 2010

6. Working beyond Borders, Insights from the Global Chief Human Resource Officers Study, IBM, September 2010

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How do your collaboration practices compare with organizations achieving best-in-class performance?

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