IBM Introduction to Social Business

Are you a social

business?

Analysis, collaboration,
insight and social sentiment
at the touch of a button.
Are you ready for the next
wave of business?

Contents

CONTENTS
Welcome to this special report focused on social business, brought to you by IBM in
association with IT Pro.

Prologuep3
An introduction by Daniel Wilks, UK and Ireland
business unit executive, IBM Social Business

Why are businesses going social?

p5

We look at what it means to be a social business and
why companies are undergoing such a transformation.

IBM and social business

p8

This fact sheet looks at the role IBM can play in
helping your organisation become a social business.

Social business – the benefits

p10

What benefits can your organisation hope to gain
by becoming more social? And how can it benefit
your customers and partners too? We take a look
and showcase how organisations of all sectors and
sizes are making social work for them.

Social business – the risks

p12

What do you need to pay attention to in order
to avoid the pitfalls when it comes to social?
We look at the risks, the challenges and the
experiences of others.

Case study: Frontier Medical Group

p14

Learn how this leading manufacturer and
supplier of medical products has improved
efficiency and fuelled innovation by
taking advantage of
collaborative and
social tools and
Are you n?
n social:
io
technologies.
Destinatio the right direct
in
heading
Are you a social
ld you go
Why shou

stions
asked que
Frequently

FAQsp17
IBM executives
Jon Machtynger
and Stuart McRae
answer your
questions about
social business.

social?

ns
organisatio
And why are
l business?
be a socia
it mean to
look…
What does
We take a
ae answer
this direction? and Stuart McR
ger
heading in
Jon Machtyn
experts
boration
c.
s and colla
ortant topi
CTO of
this imp
al busines
tynger is
ions
IBM’s soci questions around
Jon Mach
oration solut
your
IBM collab
d. He’s
some of
UK and Irelan

business?

FAQs

in the
2002
IBM since
been with
a
to that held
and prior
ltancy and
of consu
number
the IT
g roles in
engineerin
industry.

tive
e is execu
Stuart McRa
n evangelist
collaboratio
nt role
his curre
at IBM. In
isations
es organ
he advis
fits of being
on the bene
and the
business
a social
take in
need to
steps they trends. .
and
demands get thereally, use of social
order to specific
In Europe,
.

a social
who feel having
n.
However, those
are mistake
g
e is enough
media presenc
s means changin
social busines
ation – from
Being a truly
The
of your organis
changing.
ogy, inside
he world is
the very nature
e
and technol
yet fully mature
of the
users consum
processes
s of
media is not
63 per cent
way in which
the culture,
is
highest echelon
more than
ion
information
That said,
has seen are
and from the
and digest
online
Marketing populat a figure that and out, y down and back up again. part
European
l –
g, as are their
also evolvin
the compan
the key Westernthe impact socia s
social networkof
needs to become
and where
What are
s2017.
currently using
how, when
essence, social
In
come
d this
around
have in term from
to 70 per cent
rs behin
preferences
ers
will risecan
really - there and play. drive
of your DNA.
rest
response
that empow
l?
a platform
social? Not they work, like generate more than 2.5
getting a
chan
do youge
it is
“You need
but ess
shift to socia ing
relationships
businhow
tools, but day, we
social
a stagger
Every hotel.
to build the
are other
someone,
Powering turn things to their
nally,
or on
data. That’s
What does
employees
on
face-to-face
canthat? Exter
well-known bytes of
mean in
’s a
have built
Organisationsert
going to a quintilli information.
conv drive real value – for
business
they would
because
JM: There e
media,” says
s are usingemployees
ge and
amount
ne via online
You go there , it’s t has increased our appetit of what
advantabusinesse customers, gap.
s?
the telepho
dimension
Collaboration
their
The
d valueinterne
real term
lves andto bridge that tools
Executive
ted data growth,
it has bran there’s dge and accelera in our work lives themse social by deploying social
Stuart McRae,
a
dfor knowle
ar,
we do has played our and partners – of the remit
l is an
Part
understoo but social media, in particulwhat we do in
are
data has
JM: Socia
ogies.
about
and
and there some 90 per cent of that
and technolsocial is not
term. It’s
ty,
and
alone,
of
interesting
key role –
one quali rooms available. in thepersonal lives
ble. It’s
past two years rations treat
ed
string – every
always
being socia
gene
been generat
a piece of
different
n of
t being
each of
to IBM.
own visio
not abou
tweets
according gh
rently. But l –
thou
has their
cuddly and
it 5,700
home to diffe
SM: Even
me, it’s the
Twitter plays
warm and for the
very socia
of it as 100 hours of video are
social. For people
s
them are , and and
, some
people think the
of
per second
minute ical
doing thing good new in to YouTube every a techn each e.
right
right level
from
‘likes’ ectiv
something uploaded
n with the
greater world tally about
nces 2.7 billion persp
there have
interactio parency.
personal data.
ok experie
the
amen
enterprise Facebos like this around 500TB of take all
it’s fund
g to
if you
level of trans s you can
e
capabilitieequatin so. But, at the very least always
day –
something a
must
, we’v
been
doing
years or
n
That mean
10The business world tools away and
s you as
not try
l interactio
for the last board type such change, ifsocial.
that serve
are
have a socia one, one
been te future more
tin pace with
keep
and there
anticipa
bring
to
The bulle
ahead and
who
business
The tools
people could
stay one step
that is one
of people
to

T

’t let
nisations don
nt that orga
bad about
It’s importa
something
eone saying
in social
a fear of som from participating
stop them
them
media.
oration,

or many
t
to many
really abou
many. It’s
social
embedding into the way
s
capabilitie
ess.
do busin
that you
need
Do you really to be
page
a Facebook

Analysis, collab
ent
insight andinsocial sentim
a number
that
cipate
.
will parti
at the touch of a button
process.
next
Are you ready for the
17
wave of business?

5
11

scale
thing some is now
ct, more
90s
can impa more real-time
do in the
everybody
/ of
and a
siness/us/en
to get
something
those types
nature
don’t have m/social-bu to
ss
do. They www.ibm.co or
ns.
ical acce
interactio
over a techn le.
hurd
a learning

s/us/en/
al-busines
com/soci
www.ibm.

www.ibm.com/social-business/

2

Prologue: Daniel Wilks

Going social
Being a social business is so much more than just
Facebook, Twitter et al. Read on and we’ll show you why,
as well as how your organisation can be more effective,
productive and successful.

W

I’m hugely excited
by the emergence
of social business
as a trend as there
are definitely
some parallels as
to where IBM as a
business is headed.


elcome to this IBM
special report focused
on social business.
Being a social
business is about so much more than
having a Facebook or Twitter profile and
updating your statuses regularly. Of course,
such social media platforms are important.
But, more than that, the ability to interact
and enter into an enhanced dialogue with
customers, employees and partners alike
becomes increasingly important.
I’m hugely excited by the emergence
of social business as a trend as there are
definitely some parallels as to where IBM as
a business is headed. This, for me, means
we are all working towards a common goal.
By tapping into social connections
and enhanced collaboration, we can find
new ways of working and new ways of
solving problems. I can recall one particular
example whereby a pet food firm found it
had supply chain issues that could have
led to contaminated contents getting into
its products. Left unresolved, this could
have been catastrophic let alone bad for
reputation.
Thankfully, the company made use of
social media and analytics and, as a result,
was able to intervene and remedy the issue

before it was too late.
Social business as a trend does not exist
in isolation. Together with analytics, big data,
cloud and mobile, organsations are able to
both tap into and address customer demand.
What business doesn’t want to have
better insight into what customers are
saying or how they’re feeling? Similarly, what
organisation doesn’t want to improve the way
in which it attracts, recruits and maintains
staff? Or indeed, ensure employees remain
safe while in the workplace?
Social technologies have a key
role to play in everything we do both as
business users and consumers. As the
world becomes more digital and more vocal
about the services received and experiences
encountered, it is paramount we tap into
those voices.
Whatever step of the journey your
organisation is on, we hope you find this
report useful and informative in helping
you reach the destination of being a
more effective, productive and successful
social business.
Thanks for reading
Daniel Wilks, UK Ireland business unit
executive, IBM Social Business

3

‘LIKING’ ISN’T LEADING.
It’s easy to forget that
e-commerce is a fairly recent
innovation. Buying books
and shoes online seemed novel
until traditional commerce
and e-commerce finally
merged. Then suddenly, there
was no more ‘online business’.
Only business.

for social business to interpret

the web as an infinite focus
group. When recent social
conversation on sustainability
led the company to introduce
greener packaging, Amadori
turned customers into advocates.

A similar shift is unfolding now
with social technology. Beyond
attracting ‘likes’, social
technology is about building
communities and collaboration
within your workforce and
empowering your customers
and partners to help build
your brand.
On a smarter planet, every
business is increasingly
expected to integrate social
into its core practices. Any
business that isn’t social by
design won’t stay in business.

A SOCIAL WORKFORCE
IS A SMARTER WORKFORCE.

Picture a company that thrives
as a social network, not as
an organisational chart. What
if your company’s employees
could quickly identify other
colleagues and candidates to
help them overcome challenges,
and could crowdsource their
knowledge across departments,
across languages, across oceans?

Could you use an extra day of
productivity from your staff each
week? Social technology can increase
efficiency by as much as 25%.

THERE’S NO bUSINESS
bUT SOCIAL bUSINESS.

Investing in becoming a social
business goes beyond building
a social network. It demands
capturing and analysing the
data that the network creates

THE RISE OF
SOCIAL BUSINESS.
For cement giant Cemex, IBM
solutions for social business
have helped its teams in 50
countries trade insights in real
time. Employees have built a
network of communities
around shared projects and
skills, helping Cemex launch
its first global brand in a third
of the time it had anticipated.

TURNING CUSTOMERS
INTO ADVOCATES.

Social inputs like reviews and
comments could already be
driving as much as a third of
consumer spending. That’s
why your brand’s success will
depend on its ability to
match what it promises with
the products and services
it delivers.

to remove the technological
and cultural boundaries both
inside and outside your
company. And before you know
it, there will be no more
‘social business’: Only business.
Visit ibm.com/socialbusiness/uk

LET’S bUILD A
SMARTER pLANET.

The Italian poultry marketer
Amadori Group did just
that by using IBM solutions

IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, Smarter Planet and the planet icon are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. A current list of IBM trademarks
is available on the Web at www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. © International Business Machines Corporation 2013.

Why should you go social?

Destination social: Are you
heading in the right direction?
What does it mean to be a social business? And why are organisations
heading in this direction? We take a look…

T

he world is changing. The
way in which users consume
and digest information is
also evolving, as are their
preferences around how, when and where
they work, rest and play.
Every day, we generate more than 2.5
quintillion bytes of data. That’s a staggering
amount information.
The internet has increased our appetite
for knowledge and accelerated data growth,
but social media, in particular, has played a
key role – some 90 per cent of that data has
been generated in the past two years alone,
according to IBM.
Twitter plays home to 5,700 tweets
per second, some 100 hours of video are
uploaded to YouTube every minute, and
Facebook experiences 2.7 billion ‘likes’ each
day – equating to around 500TB of data.
The business world must at the very least
keep pace with such change, if not try and
stay one step ahead and anticipate future

www.ibm.com/social-business/us/en/

demands and trends.
In Europe, specifically, use of social
media is not yet fully mature.
That said, more than 63 per cent of the
Western European online population are
currently using social networks – a figure that
will rise to 70 per cent come 2017.

Powering business change
Organisations can turn things to their
advantage and drive real value – for
themselves and their customers, employees
and partners – by deploying social tools
and technologies.

However, those who feel having a social
media presence is enough are mistaken.
Being a truly social business means changing
the very nature of your organisation – from
the culture, processes and technology, inside
and out, and from the highest echelons of
the company down and back up again.
In essence, social needs to become part
of your DNA.
“You need a platform that empowers
employees to build the relationships
they would have built face-to-face or on
the telephone via online media,” says
Stuart McRae, Executive Collaboration

It’s important that organisations don’t let
a fear of someone saying something bad about
them stop them from participating in social
media.

5
11


Evangelist at IBM.
“You need the right technology that does
that well. Yes, the UI is important but it’s
actually about a much deeper need to have
the right services delivered in the right way
that actually helps people. Then you need
a cultural change in the organisation to one
that is more open and collaborative rather
than competitive. If you’re not ready to make
that change, I don’t think social is going to
work very well in your organisation.”

The importance of social
The very nature of social is about sharing and
being more open. By empowering employees
to come up with and exchange ideas that
could be of benefit to the business, rather
than feeling competitive and secretive about
them, everyone stands to benefit.
Employees will feel more motivated

The point at which each business begins its transformation to social business varies, but every social business drives value by making
traditional communication and collaboration networks more efficient, authentic and flexible. Credit: IBM Thought Leadership Whitepaper:
The compelling returns from IBM Connections in support of social business

starting to think about how to leverage the
fact that the people who can make a process
better are the ones doing it every day.”

Giving customers a voice
Similarly, by tapping into customer sentiment
about your products and services, through
the channels they want to use, your business

You need a cultural change in the
organisation to one that is more open and
collaborative rather than competitive. If you’re
not ready to make that change, I don’t think
social is going to work very well in your
organisation.
and the organisation is accelerating and
fuelling innovation that can help it stand out
from competitors.
“Younger people come into the workplace
– the millennials – and they just ‘get it.’
That’s because they’ve lived with the internet
from day one. If people weren’t willing to
share and be open on the internet, things
like Facebook simply wouldn’t work,”
adds McRae.
“Trumping ideas and the internal
competition around whose idea is best so
things are kept secret is exactly the wrong
attitude towards innovating and improving
business processes.”
He continues: “Rewarding people for
coming up with good ideas is very different
from having a set of people compete to come
up with the best idea. It’s a subtle difference
but one that’s really key to making the right
cultural change. Now, organisations are


“The dissatisfaction stemming from failure
to respond via social channels can lead to
up to a 15 per cent increase in churn rate
for existing customers,” says Carol Rozwell,
vice president and distinguished analyst
at Gartner. “It’s crucial that organisations
implement approaches to handling
social media now. The effort involved in
addressing social media commentary is not
good cause to ignore relevant comments or
solvable issues.”

Treading very carefully
Businesses should be mindful of three
key things when it comes to social interaction
with customers externally, according to
Rozwell.
“It’s important that organisations don’t
let a fear of someone saying something bad
about them stop them from participating in
social media. Secondly, don’t assume all

will be seen as approachable,
accessible and, more importantly,
responsive.
“Those people are having
a conversation about you
whether you open up
and listen or not,”
warns McRae.
“So do you want to put
your hands over your ears
or do you want to listen? If you
want to listen do you then ignore
the fact someone’s incredibly
unhappy or do you do something
about it? That gets you to the
engagement section where you have to
start managing those conversations.”
Companies that ignore what customers
are saying and fail to pay them the courtesy
of acknowledging their voice will be
penalised, analyst firm Gartner has warned.

6
11


the implications that social software
developments have for related technologies,”
according to Jeffrey Mann, research vice
president at Gartner.
“As social technologies mature and
organisations improve their understanding
of how to apply them, they will be found
in more and more situations. Increasingly,
social technologies are not implemented on
a stand-alone basis, but are tightly integrated
within a variety of other technologies,
including business, IT operations, unified
communications and collaboration
applications.”

The future

comments require the same level of attention
— develop an appropriate response for the
different types of interaction your business
faces,” she advises.
“Thirdly, plan for an increase in social
commentary and adapt communications
practices to cope — this will require changes
to job descriptions, performance metrics and
business processes.”

Getting from A to B
Becoming a social business is a journey and
the changes required to get there won’t occur
overnight. Careful planning is key to creating
the right strategy that will ensure you are
successful as a social business rather than
exposing yourself to greater uncertainty and
unnecessary risk.
However, not all social business efforts
will result in the benefits organisations


anticipate, Gartner warns. Indeed, the analyst
firm has predicted that between now and
2015, some 80 per cent of social business
initiatives won’t bear the fruits expected

Years from now we won’t be talking
about whether businesses should be more
social. We’ll take it for granted that they
are. It will become second nature and as
if it’s always been that way, according to
industry experts.
Gartner has predicted that half of large
firms will have Facebook-esque internal social
networks by 2016 and that one-third of these
platforms will be viewed in the same way
as telephony and email communication in
terms of core value.
“It’s very hard to be a good, engaged
company on external social media but have
your staff work internally in traditional ways.
You have to reach out to partners, suppliers
and customers as well as employees to make
them part of the conversation,” says McRae.
“In the 20th Century we had face-to-face
supported by letters, then telephone then
email. In the 21st Century, relationships
and friendships are online, which supports

Some 63 per cent of the Western
European online population are currently
using social networks - a figure that will rise to
70 per cent come 2017.
due to an overemphasis on pure technology
rather than all the necessary elements
required for success.
“IT leaders must keep abreast of this
evolving sector in order to take advantage
of social capabilities and understand

face-to-face meetings, often using the mobile
phone. People still want to meet face-to-face,
but a lot of the mechanics of getting there is
done online. Social technologies just change
the dynamics of the way you can work and
amplify what you can do face-to-face.”

7
11

Fact Sheet

What IBM can do
for your social business

A

social business is an
organisation whose culture
and systems encourage
networks of people to create
business value. Social businesses connect
individuals, so they can rapidly share
information, knowledge and ideas by having
conversations and publishing informal
content. They analyse social content from
multiple channels and sources, in addition
to structured data, to gain insights from both
external and internal stakeholders.
When those things happen, innovation
and business execution rates increase, better
decisions are made, and customers and
employees are more engaged and satisfied.
Social businesses enjoy lower operating
costs, faster speed-to-market, improved
customer and employee engagement, and
increased profitability.

the company has also helped others on their
journey to becoming social. More than 60 per
cent of Fortune 100 companies have licensed
IBM solutions for social business.
IBM consultants work daily with
organisations from all industries and
geographies to help them tap the
transformative power of social business.
This social business know-how has also
informed the design of related IBM software
and cloud-based services, as well as their
implementation and use, both within the
company and in customer organisations.
When IBM released IBM Connections,
in 2007, it was one of the first enterprise
social software products in a nascent market.
Since then, the IBM social platform has
grown and can now be used to embed social
capabilities in any business process. IBM
WebSphere Portal has proven itself as an

Lowes built internal communities to
share best practices and see deeper
into their human capital across
stores. Clarissa Felts, Lowes VP of
Collaboration, presented
at Connect 2013 and mentioned how
using IBM Connections has improved
their recruitment process within
headquarters in finding proven talent
that knows the store environment
from first-hand experience.


offer. IBM’s social business software and
in-cloud services are frequently recognised
as industry leaders by the most influential
analyst firms. Those acknowledgements
include:

✔ DC has designated IBM as the Worldwide
I

IBM and Social Business
In early 2011, IBM publicly declared that it
was becoming a social business, accelerating
existing initiatives to better connect the
organisation’s employees, customers, partners
and suppliers. These efforts to transform IBM’s
culture, business processes and computing
systems — and, ultimately, its business
outcomes — have yielded global, first-hand
experiences with, and knowledge of, social
business.
Not only is IBM a social business itself, but

Asian Paints’sales staff members found
it difficult to share best practices and
innovative ways of supporting dealers,
and they had no way to post issues of
concern to the entire sales team. IBM
Connections software is heavily used
[now] in the sales department, which
finds it an excellent tool for solving
challenges by sharing innovations,
expertise and best practices.

Social Business Patterns are similar
in concept to business process flows,
in that each represents a repeatable,
proven set of value-producing actions.

Enterprise Social Software Market Share
leader for the last four consecutive years
(2009-2012)

✔ artner named IBM a “visionary” in its most
G
recent assessment of the Enterprise Content
Management category

ideal container for role- and process-specific
social activity. IBM Content Manager and IBM
FileNet services marry traditional enterprise
content management practices with sharing
of content in social channels. IBM unified
messaging, analytics and web experience
management technologies have also been
integrated into the IBM social platform.
With the recent acquisition of Kenexa
and its award-winning Human Capital
Management solutions, IBM is able to
offer socially-enabled talent management
capabilities.
Much of the IBM social platform is
accessible on mobile devices such as
tablets and smartphones. In fact, IBM
social capabilities are available as native
applications on a broader array of mobile
operating systems than any of its competitors

✔ orrester Research categorised IBM among
F
the “leaders” in its latest Forrester Wave for
enterprise social platforms and its similar
assessment of providers of cloud-based
collaboration services

✔ DC named IBM a “leader” in its most recent
I
market assessment of providers of HR,
learning and recruiting process outsourcing
services.
Through the combination of deep
social expertise, deployment and adoption
services and market-leading social business
capabilities, IBM is uniquely positioned to
help organisations capture information,
create insights and generate interactions that
translate into real business value.

8

Fact Sheet

Finding expertise
•
•
•
•

Quickly locate the right people, or published content,
containing, the expertise needed to solve a problem
Connect the best possible resources to effectively respond
to customer needs
Document and share reusable solutions to common issues
Create highly-engaged and productive employees.

Gaining external
customer insights
•
•

Quickly learn customers’ opinions and preferences related
to existing and potential products and services
Identify and connect with key customer
influencers to aid marketing efforts.

Increasing knowledge sharing
•
•
•

More efficiently and effectively capture,
share and access knowledge
Increase innovation through wider reach of ideas
Reduce excessive, unproductive time spent searching and
exchanging information.

Improving recruiting
and on-boarding
•
•
•
•

Collaboratively find and connect the
right candidate to the right position
Streamline assessment and hiring processes
Better connect, engage and retain new hires
Contextually recommend expertise to
increase new hires’ productivity.

Managing mergers
and acquisitions
•
•

•

Increase overall success rate of merger
and acquisition activities
Raise effectiveness of vision setting and communication
before, during and
after merger or acquisition
Accelerate creation of “one company”
community and culture.

Enabling and improving
workplace safety
•
•
•

Speed communication of new or changed
safety regulations, policies and procedures
Minimise or eliminate project execution delays arising from
actual or potential safety issues
Improve innovation in safety procedures by increasing
dialogue between safety experts and workers.


The IBM experience
By any measure, the cumulative expertise of IBM employees is staggering. To better tap into
that wisdom, IBM has developed analytics, expert recommendation and other expertise-led
location capabilities for internal use. Employee profiles, blogs, emails (by permission), as well
as content repositories and other information sources, are automatically crawled and manually
searched to find expertise.

The IBM experience
IBM has supplied its expertise and analysis capabilities to some of the premier sporting events
in the world, including the US Open tennis and Masters golf tournaments. IBM works with
event sponsors to help them quickly harness insights to improve their understanding of the
event’s operations. Event sponsors can also learn, in real-time, from customer interaction with
the event’s website. IBM has even run its own digital events, called Jams, during which insights
are gained from online discussions involving its employees, business partners, customers and
other stakeholders. IBM also plans and conducts Jams on behalf of customers seeking to learn
more about their employees and external constituents.

The IBM experience
The research and professional services organisations within IBM are excellent examples of
knowledge-driven businesses. IBM Research employees possess deep knowledge in specific
areas of investigation; they include Nobel Laureates and winners of other prestigious awards.
Many of the researchers at the IBM Centre for Social Business have been at the forefront of
exploring how knowledge is shared within organisations and what can be done to improve
those methods and tools. They actively participate in IBM client engagements across all
industries. Blue IQ is a program that helps IBMers adopt social business practices, including
sharing knowledge. Since 2007, Blue IQ Ambassadors have volunteered their time and
expertise to help their peers collaborate more successfully. Ambassadors help their colleagues
understand why knowledge sharing and other social practices are important to their work, as
well as to the collective business results of IBM.

The IBM experience
With a global headcount over 430,000, IBM has large-scale experience in recruiting, hiring
and on-boarding new employees. Its Human Capital Management (HCM) processes are
frequently optimised and have become socially-enabled in recent years.
IBM uses LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to support its external-facing recruiting
processes. Potential candidates can be made aware of country- and role-specification
positions for which IBM is hiring, as well as interact with IBM recruiters through these
channels. IBM recruiters and hiring managers can learn about the candidate by conversing
online with them and by visiting their social profiles on the web. During the IBM on-boarding
process, new hires establish their internal social profile and connect with their supervisor
and team members. New employees are also instructed on ways to find the information and
expertise they will need to quickly become a productive contributor at IBM, including the use
of social capabilities.

The IBM experience
IBM has completed at least 120 acquisitions since 2001. Through those experiences, much
has been learned about establishing a common vision, creating a single organisational
culture, managing integration activities and retaining engaged employees. IBM use of social
capabilities has spanned the range of MA processes. IBM employees work together, and
with external partners, to assess and value potential acquisition candidates. IBM teams build
business cases together to justify specific MA action. Acquired employees participate in IBM
on-boarding processes, which are infused with social practices and capabilities.

The IBM experience
For decades, IBM has owned and operated a number of manufacturing plants, many of
which routinely house hazardous chemicals and use potentially-dangerous equipment to
produce products. The company formalised its commitment to workplace safety in 1967 and
consistently demonstrates low workday case rates. Developments in how IBM communicates
workplace safety practices and procedures, as well as learnings from assisting customers on
safety issues, inform this social business pattern.

9

Social business: The benefits

There are a number of benefits to being a more collaborative, open and social business.
We run down the top advantages here…
Accessibility
A social business is a more open, transparent
and, importantly, accessible business. If
customers can communicate in a medium
that suits them and get a satisfactory
response – often in real time – they feel, as
they should, much more than just a number.
It’s a great way to get closer to customers,
employees and partners and complements
traditional channels such as email, faceto-face, internet, paper and telephone
interaction.
With customers embracing the dawn of
social to share their thoughts and feelings,
organisations that don’t respond through
activity on similar channels may find
themselves at a disadvantage.

Cost savings
By having a more collaborative and sharing
culture, firms can reduce bottlenecks
and wastage naturally.
The ability to get information and access
to the right people at the click of a button
internally boosts productivity and adds to
the bottom line. Externally, knowing there’s
a problem as soon as possible and having a
chance to resolve it quickly is invaluable and
will save valuable time, effort and resources.
IBM is a case in point – it saves $100
million each year thanks to users heading to
its developerWorks community portal rather
than the vendor’s wider support resource.

Innovation
By improving information flow and removing
silos, employees can better exchange and
share ideas and insight.
Organisations can reduce the time it takes
to get an idea from concept to marketed
product by two-thirds, IBM claims. Such
freedom of innovation can have a visible
effect on bottom line performance. Indeed,
according to Bain and Company, social media
use can boost profits by between 25 per cent
and 125 per cent.


Insight
By gaining greater insight into customer
sentiment, trends and behaviour,
organisations can better target marketing
and product efforts. This enhanced insight
will translate into tangible results.
Social media is hugely influential – a
happy customer might not bother to tweet or
update their Facebook status, yet an unhappy
customer will shout loudly online and
encourage others to amplify their discontent.
Indeed, research by ClickZ discovered that
81 per cent of people seek purchase advice
from social networking contacts before
making a decision.

Productivity
When employees are more effectively
sharing knowledge and collaborating,
projects and tasks that would have taken
a long time or seemed unachievable
suddenly seem much more viable.
The old adage of it not being what you

know, but who you know also feels a lot
more real.
In a sales environment, with the right
culture and tools, organisations can boost
revenue generated by each employee by more
than a quarter (26 per cent), according to
McKinsey research.

Retention
If staff are empowered to innovate and
share ideas, it is likely they will feel happier
at work and more motivated.
This boost in productivity will also
help employees feel like they are adding
value and succeeding in their workrelated efforts. It’s a win/win situation
for both parties.
Furthermore, companies can also use
social tools to disseminate information
about benefits and organisational
activities quickly and easily to employees,
in addition to complementing other,
more traditional, HR efforts.

10


Social media: Real-world case studies
Being a social business has many advantages. But don’t just take our word for it, see for
yourself how organisations of all sizes and from all sectors are benefiting…

Birmingham Metropolitan College

Boston Children’s Hospital

Birmingham Metropolitan College has used social learning tools to

The Boston Children’s Hospital has implemented a platform, dubbed

create a “classroom in the cloud” to boost student engagement.

OPENPediatrics, which it hopes will enhance medical training and

“We are constantly looking for ways to make the learning
experience more engaging and accessible,” said Jamie Smith, Director
of Systems and Policy at the college.
“Ultimately, we want our students to have the best experience

improve the care it provides to patients.
“OPENPediatrics is an open forum to connect healthcare providers
around the world,” said Traci Wolbrink, Associate Director of
OPENPediatrics and a doctor at Boston Children’s Hospital. “The idea is

possible during their time at BMet. We feel certain that giving them

to leverage technology to promote worldwide sharing and exchange of

more choice in the tools they use to participate can only be a good thing.”

knowledge to rescue children from crisis.”

CEMEX

Wimbledon 2013

Just one year after embarking on a social network initiative, building

The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC) made use

materials firm CEMEX had more effectively engaged its 20,000-plus

of collaborative and social technologies to track and analyse user

employees. Furthermore, some 500 communities had been created and

sentiment about players.

a further nine global social-focused programmes were in the offing.

“Understanding the social impact of the tournament as a whole is

“What started with a few hundred users in April of this year grew to

vitally important, because it enables us to learn about what fans really

17,500 today,” said Sergio J. Escobedo, CEMEX’s Innovation Director. “We

think and to start to build a two-way relationship with them,” said Mick

see a marked increase in blogs, and blog comments, as well as in the creation

Desmond, Commercial Director at the AELTC.

of more than 350 communities to bring people with common interests
and goals together. Now, that’s the power of social networking.”


“That in turn will help us to focus and enhance our digital platforms
so as to strengthen the tournament in the years to come.”

11

Social business: The risks

There are many things to consider when it comes to being a social business. And many of the
risks can come from failing to plan and the use of social media in particular. Be careful out
there...
Anonymity
There is no such thing as the ability to
remain anonymous on social media and
the internet in general. Even if you don’t
use your real name as your moniker, what
you say and the connections you have
may reveal your identity anyway.
As such, it’s incredibly important to
exercise the same common sense and
care when relaying your opinion and
thoughts using social media that you
would in the real world. Hiding behind
an online user name is no excuse –
or get out of jail free card – for being
abusive, breaking the rules or
making disparaging remarks about
customers, colleagues or strangers, or
posting comments that could damage
your employer’s reputation.
User education and guidance and
policy documents are key to ensuring
an organisation benefits from the use
of collaborative tools and social media.
Without such structure, there is a real
danger social media activity could do
your business more harm than good.

Bandwagon
‘Doing’ social just because everyone
else is with no real, relevant strategy is
probably much more dangerous than
not doing anything at all.
Facebook might be an appropriate
medium for some organisations in
some sectors but that doesn’t mean it’s
right for everyone. The same is true of
other social networking tools such as
Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter et al.
Take the time needed to think through
what it is you want to achieve from being
a social business before doing anything
else. Once you have a clear idea of your
destination and the steps you need to take
along the way you can properly start to
plan the journey.


Culture
There is no point attempting to embrace
a more collaborative and sharing culture
externally if you’re not following the same
approach internally in your organisation. The
same can be said the other way around.
The passion for collaboration must be
both top down and bottom up, inside and
out, in order for an organisation to truly
succeed as a social business. Culture must
blend together with people, processes and
technology to drive business value and
gain real advantage from social interactions
internally and externally.

Disclaimers
Users seem to be under the impression that
adding a disclaimer to their profile saying
‘Views are my own and not my employer’s’
or words to that effect create a clear divide
between business and pleasure. That’s the
theory. The reality is quite the opposite.
Disclaimers in the social media world
mean nothing. Much like the point here
about anonymity, the comments you make
and connections you share in some way identify

who you are. And, whether you like it or not,
your employer still has a vested interest in
the comments you make when not at work.
Of course, you want employees to be able
to freely express themselves and not feel
censored. However, there needs to be clear
boundaries and organisations must lead
by example.

Intern involvement/
Separate departments
This is asking for trouble. If we except social
media is an important channel why leave
it to the unpaid worky? That smacks of
laziness and cost-cutting – two things that
can actually cost you very dearly.
Similarly, think carefully before you
create a dedicated ‘social media’ team. If
you go down this road, you need some way
of ensuring you’re on the same page and
have a way of connecting/collaborating.
The people tweeting and updating statuses
and responding to customers on your behalf
must be plugged in to how the people
closest to that particular product or process
behave and think.

12


Social media: When things go wrong
You must be aware of the risks to avoid the worst happening, leaving your organisation’s
reputation in tatters. Pay heed to what you need to do or you could end up in one of these
rather sticky situations…

Hashtag misuse
When former Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher died, the nation was divided.
Many mourned and lamented the
passing of the Iron Lady, while others
looked upon some of her past decisions
much less favourably and made unkind
comments.
Most of this dialogue took place
on social networking sites such
as Facebook and Twitter and it
wasn’t long before the topic was
trending with the hashtag ‘Now That
Thatcher’s Dead’. Unfortunately in
the social media world that looks like
this #nowthatcherisdead which means
something different entirely.
In a similar vein, McDonalds
ended up paying for negative
promotion when it asked customers
to share their experiences with the food
chain. #McDstories ending up creating
a real-time forum for disgruntled users
to expose and exchange their horror stories.

Credit: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2090862/
McDstories-McDonalds-Twitter-promotion-backfires-usersshare-fast-food-horror-stories.html

Singing a company’s
praises (not)
United Airlines was on the wrong side
of the power of social media, back in
2009, when musician Dave Carroll
wrote a song entitled ‘United Breaks
Guitars.’ After a trip with the airline,
his $3,500 guitar was damaged and,
frustrated with a lack of response and
compensation, he took to social media.
The song was posted on YouTube
and went viral. Some 150,000 people
viewed the video on the first day of
posting and, as of September 2013,
more than 13 million people had
watched it. Shortly after the video
was posted, United made contact with
Carroll to try and resolve the issue.
It is reported by Wikipedia that
United has tried to learn from the
incident and that the managing director
of customer solutions at the time
personally apologised and asked if
the video could be used for internal
training going forward.

The intern effect
In 2012, Tom Watson MP had to have
a little word with his intern after she
hijacked his account, which he’d left
open while attending a meeting.
Watson took back control of his
account and tweeted a public apology.
He also confirmed that the student
intern, although in hot water over the
matter, would not be sacked and could
remain on her year-long placement.

Credit: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

Credit: @
rickygervais
Credit: www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/9041473/
Tom-Watsons-Twitter-account-hijacked-by-intern.html


13

Case Study: Frontier medical group

Frontier Medical Group works
smarter with IBM social software
The need
Frontier Medical Group (Frontier)
wanted to improve efficiencies and
collaboration between its development
and sales divisions, in an effort to
shorten time-to-market for new
products.
The solution
Frontier is working with IBM Business
Partner Codel Software to build a
more collaborative business using
IBM Connections – social software that
supports smarter information sharing
and integration.
The benefits
Improved project information visibility
and team member efficiency, slashing
product development cycles and
driving greater innovation, which
helps the company to stay one step
ahead of competition.

F

rontier Medical Group (Frontier)
is a leading manufacturer and
supplier of medical products to
healthcare providers in the UK,
Europe and internationally. A large part of
its business is focused on providing devices
for the safe exchange and disposal of sharps
objects, such as needles and syringes.

Tackling
development challenges
As a medical device manufacturer, Frontier
operates against a backdrop of strict
regulatory guidelines and increasing cost
sensitivity, as healthcare budgets continue
to shrink. It must work harder than ever
to ensure products are manufactured
to exacting standards, meet customer
requirements and offer optimum costeffectiveness.
Faced with these pressures, Frontier
looked for a way to boost efficiencies and
strengthen collaboration between its
product development and sales teams. If
the company could streamline development
cycles, it could get new products to market


more quickly and cheaply, potentially
securing a valuable edge over the
competition.
Dan Taylor, Product Designer at Frontier
Medical Products, elaborates: “In the past,
product development could be held up
because people often weren’t clear about
where they were in a given project. We were
looking for a way to bring team members
together, so they could have a centralised
view of the latest project status, as well as
a way to collaborate and share information
more effectively.”

opportunity to evaluate IBM Connections,
it immediately recognised that the solution
was a perfect fit for Frontier’s needs.
Stephen Coombs, IT Manager at Frontier
Medical Products, explains: “For us, IBM
Connections offered the total package: it
had the right look-and-feel, offered all the
functionality we wanted, and had the added
advantage of being web-based, so we could
access it from mobile devices. This was a
big plus as our sales teams spend a lot of
time out in the field, and don’t always have
access to a desktop computer.”

Choosing IBM Connections

Rolling out the solution

In its search for a solution, Frontier reviewed
collaboration software from a range of
vendors, but found that none of the products
fully matched what the business was looking
for. When the company finally had the

Frontier started by purchasing a small
number of IBM Connections licenses for a
pilot phase, testing the solution and seeing
how it aligned with users’ ways of working.
This pilot proved highly successful, and the

14


Solution components
Software IBM® Connections
IBM Business Partner
Codel Software

company moved ahead with a wider roll-out,
first extending the solution to users in the
product development department, then to
other divisions, such as sales and marketing.
“We felt that the best way to start
bringing users on board with Connections
was to immerse them in the solution
as much as possible,” states Stephen
Coombs. “We developed communities for
specific projects, and added people to each
community so they could get to grips with
using the software and start participating
and sharing information. As more and more
users become familiar with the solution, and
see first-hand the benefits that it can deliver,
we expect Connections to really take off
across the entire business.”

Technical assistance
from IBM Business
Partner Codel Software helped to guarantee
a smooth implementation. “We have been
working with Codel Software for a long time,
and have built up a solid partnership with
their team over the years. Codel worked
closely with us on the pilot deployment, and
were always there to help put things right
when we hit any bumps during the wider
implementation.”

Fostering greater
collaboration
IBM Connections allows Frontier to build
better networks between project teams.
It offers an integrated, secure platform
for sharing information, discussing ideas,
planning project tasks and working more
collaboratively.
“With IBM Connections it’s much
easier to bring people together and develop
ideas,” says Taylor. “For each project, we
can create an online community, and set up
features like blogs with the latest project
status and forums for discussing new ideas
and concepts. The image gallery is also
really useful as it helps us to have a good
visualisation of product designs.
“All files get uploaded to a central


location, so we no longer have multiple
copies of documents spread across different
computers. This is helping to cut down on
storage space on our server, and there’s also
no more hunting through emails or system
folders to find the information we need,
which is a big time-saver.”

Accelerating
development timelines
Frontier expects IBM Connections to
deliver a considerable boost to its product
development processes by facilitating

“In the past, it often happened that
the sales team would only see products
near the end of the development cycle.
If they had suggestions about changing
certain elements of a design, it meant
that the development team would have
to take a few steps back to make the
modifications, which ended up lengthening
our development cycles and time-to-market.
With IBM Connections, sales staff are
actively involved at every stage during the
design process, and can give us constant
feedback. This allows us to keep projects

We believe that selecting IBM
Connections represents a very secure
investment for our business: it is helping us to
work smarter and speed our time-to-market,
so that we can stay one step ahead of the
competition.
more efficient communication between
development and sales teams.
“When it comes to developing new
products, we rely a lot on input from our
sales teams: at the end of the day, they are
the ones who are interacting with customers
and working to sell our products, so it’s
crucial that we get their feedback on new
designs,” explains Taylor.

on track, and get better products out
to market faster.”

Secure information
exchange
In addition to bringing together the
company’s internal departments, IBM
Connections is helping Frontier to
support more secure collaboration with

15
11


represents a very secure investment for our
business: it is helping us to work smarter
and speed our time-to-market, so that we
can stay one step ahead of the competition.”

About Codel Software
Codel Software specialises in providing a
portfolio of business solutions, bespoke
software development, system integration
and software support services that help
improve clients’ business performance. As
an IBM Business Partner, the Codel Software
team has over thirty years’ experience
delivering solutions based on IBM
technologies. Its vision is to deliver continuous
improvement through collaborative
solutions. www.codelsoftware.com

international partners.
“We have a distribution partner
based in Belgium, and work with them
a lot on developing various products for
the European market,” notes Taylor. “IBM
Connections has delivered a real boost
to our interaction with this team, giving
everyone better visibility over projects and
speeding up the design process. “
He adds: “Importantly, Connections
helps us to keep information exchange
highly secure by giving us complete control
over which users can view different types of
information. We can restrict different teams’
access to just the groups that they need, so
there’s no risk of unauthorised users gaining
access to sensitive data.”

For more information
To learn more about IBM social
software solutions, contact your
IBM sales representative or IBM
Business Partner, or visit us at: ibm.
com/software/lotus/products/
connections
To learn more about products,
services and solutions from Codel
Software, visit: www.codelsoftware.
com


Meeting regulatory
requirements
The solution’s rich document management
capabilities also provide Frontier with a solid
audit trail for various regulatory bodies. The
company undergoes regular external audits,
aimed at ensuring that stringent guidelines
are followed during the product design
process. With full documentation of all
stages of a project centrally available in IBM
Connections, Frontier can easily prove that it
is complying with regulations.

Keeping an edge
on market competition
In the future, Frontier is planning to build
on these successes by extending the mobile
capabilities of the solution and issuing sales
teams with iPads. These will be used to provide
on-the-go access to Connections, so that
sales teams can share new product concepts
with customers on site. This will help the
company to get valuable feedback from target
users and better gauge consumer interest.
Coombs concludes: “We are very
pleased to see the momentum that IBM is
building around mobile collaboration, and
feel confident that its solutions will continue
to be enhanced so that we can get great
value out of them for many years to come.
We believe that selecting IBM Connections

© Copyright IBM Corporation 2013
IBM United Kingdom Limited PO Box 41, North
Harbour Portsmouth Hampshire, PO6 3AU
Produced in the United Kingdom May 2013
IBM, the IBM logo and ibm.com are trademarks
of International Business Machines Corp.,
registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other
product and service names might be trademarks
of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM
trademarks is available on the web at “Copyright
and trademark information” at ibm.com/legal/
copytrade.shtml.
IBM and Codel Software are separate companies
and each is responsible for its own products.
Neither IBM nor Codel Software makes any
warranties, express or implied, concerning the
other’s products.
This document is current as of the initial date of
publication and may be changed by IBM at any
time. Not all offerings are available in every
country in which IBM operates.
The client examples cited are presented for
illustrative purposes only. Actual performance
results may vary depending on specific
configurations and operating conditions.
THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS
PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT
ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF NONINFRINGEMENT.
IBM products are warranted according to the
terms and conditions of the agreements under
which they are provided.
The client is responsible for ensuring compliance
with laws and regulations applicable to it. IBM
does not provide legal advice or represent or
warrant that its services or products will ensure
that the client is in compliance with any law or
regulation. Statements regarding IBM’s future
direction and intent are subject to change or
withdrawal without notice, and represent goals
and objectives only.

16

Frequently asked questions

FAQs

IBM’s social business and collaboration experts Jon Machtynger and Stuart McRae answer
some of your questions around this important topic.
Jon Machtynger is CTO of
IBM collaboration solutions
in the UK and Ireland. He’s
been with IBM since 2002
and prior to that held a
number of consultancy and
engineering roles in the IT
industry.

Stuart McRae is executive
collaboration evangelist
at IBM. In his current role
he advises organisations
on the benefits of being
a social business and the
steps they need to take in
order to get there.

What does social
business mean in
real terms?
JM: Social is an
interesting term. It’s
a piece of string – everyone
has their own vision of
social. For me, it’s the
right level of people
interaction with the right
level of transparency.
That means you can
have a social interaction
that is one to one, one
to many or many to
many. It’s really about
embedding social
capabilities into the way
that you do business.
Do you really need
a Facebook page to be

social? Not really - there
are other tools, but it is like
going to a well-known hotel.
You go there because
it has brand value, it’s
understood there’s
quality, and there are
always rooms available.
SM: Even though
people think of it as
something new, in the
enterprise, there have
been capabilities like this
for the last 10 years or so.
The bulletin board type
thing some people could
do in the 90s is now
something everybody can
do. They don’t have to get
over a technical access or
a learning hurdle.


What are the key
drivers behind this
shift to social?
JM: There’s a
dimension of what
we do in our work lives
and what we do in our
personal lives and
different generations treat
it differently. But each of
them are very social –
from a technical and
personal perspective.
But, if you take all the
tools away, we’ve always
been social.
The tools bring more
impact, more scale
and a more real-time
nature to those types of
interactions.

Marketing has seen
the impact social
can have in terms of
getting a response from
someone, but how do you
convert that? Externally,
businesses are using
social to bridge that gap.
Part of the remit
of social is not about
being sociable. It’s
not about being
warm and cuddly and
doing things for the
greater world good it’s fundamentally about
doing something
that serves you as a
business and there are
a number of people who
will participate in that
process.

17

Frequently asked questions

SM: Drivers are
always more
powerful when they
coincide with other
drivers that push them
in the same direction.
It’s about the
business not about the
social. It’s not what
you know, it’s who you
know. In business terms
it’s about going to find
more senior people and
building relationships
with them. That will
be key to getting their
attention and getting
their help in future. Again,
in some ways, social
business is about doing
that but just on an online
basis.

can work out what they
want to use where, for
example, collaboration
cloud services here
versus monitoring cloud
services there.
It’s very much an
evolution in the way
that they conduct
business and satisfy IT
requirements than simply
ticking the cloud box.

Where do other
technologies/trends
such as cloud fit in?

In the future, in business, we will be using
social media in exactly the same way as we do
the telephone today. That is, we won’t even think
about it. We’ll just do it. It’s not about the medium
anymore, it’s about the content.

JM: Cloud gives
users flexibility in
architecture. It gives them
commercial flexibility and
the ability to reduce
costs.
But it’s also a very
confusing area. So when
a client says to us they
want a cloud solution, it’s
a great opportunity for us
to have a conversation
with them about what
they mean by that.
We can talk about what
we’ve seen in other
engagements so we’re
very much walking into
the discussion as peers
as opposed to vendor
and client. Then they

SM: It’s not
about Facebook
existing, it’s about the
fact most people will
update their statuses
using mobile devices,
the fact tweets are short,
and that there is a
synergy between these

JM: IBM’s role is to
support the internal
requirements of the ways
in which people want to
interact and the way they
interact externally. And to
do so in a way that fulfils
what the business wants.
We tend to do things in a
very social way within
IBM. We do a lot of
sharing. It’s been a long
cultural journey but it’s
now second nature to all
of us.
SM: If I want to
know something in
IBM, someone out of
those 400,000-plus
people will be able to help
me. It’s then entirely down

two technologies.
Cloud technologies
and the freemium model
for delivering services
across the internet had to
happen at the same time
as this mass adoption of
a business model people
get into very quickly and
are willing to pay for later.

to my ability to drive the
social systems so I can
find that person.
They’re probably
open to listening and
if they’re not I can find
someone who has a good
relationship with them I
know who can step in and
I can get to them that way.

How is IBM as an
organisation
harnessing the power of
social?

What are your
predictions for the
future when it comes to
social business?


JM: It’s not a race.
The difficulty is
many organisations are
under pressure to deliver on
a quarterly basis so it
might seem like a race.
Social highlights the
complete unpredictability
of individuals. But that’s
part of the benefit too.
Because things are so
unpredictable, because
they’re unplanned,
sometimes people can
surprise you amazingly
by delivering incredible
bits of innovation or
sharing.
Or just by reducing costs
like you could never have
imagined before. But
the fact it wasn’t part of

a plan means no one
could put a process around
it and constrain its success.
SM: In the future,
in business, we will
be using social media in
exactly the same way
as we do the telephone
today.
That is, we won’t even
think about it. We’ll
just do it. It’s not about
the medium anymore,
it’s about the content.

18

Further reading
For fu
inform rther
ation, v
www.ibm
isit:
.c

Further reading
We’ve rounded up some useful resources and further reading we hope
you will find helpful as you strive to become a more social business.

om/sma
rterplan
en/socia
et/uk/
lbusiness
/overvie
w/

To view
I
busines BM’s social
s video
www.yo
s visit:
utube.co
m/use
r/IBMSo
ci

alBiz
Follow
IBM so
cial bu
siness
on Twit
ter:
www
. twitter.
com/
IBMSoci
alBiz

Assess the benefits of being a social business

IBM empowers firms with new social business tools

Becoming a social business

Social business in action

IBM demonstrates social leadership

The advent of the social business


19

IBM Introduction to Social Business

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (19)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to IBM Introduction to Social Business

Similar to IBM Introduction to Social Business (20)

More from adigaskell

More from adigaskell (12)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

IBM Introduction to Social Business