by Brianna Crandall — April 4, 2014—The need to enhance communication and collaboration in the workplace to increase employee engagement, accelerate decision-making, and boost overall productivity is driving the global enterprise social networking market, according to global growth consulting firm Frost and Sullivan. Organizations are said to be integrating purposeful social collaboration functionality into workflows to dynamically connect people and information at the appropriate time, instead of relying solely on legacy collaboration tools utilized in traditional static use cases.
(Readers who would like an explanation of how facilities managers can use social media to improve business can refer to the FMLink article by iOffice titled “Social Media: How to do it… and why you need to. A facility manager’s guide to using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and more to make business better.”)
Frost and Sullivan’s new research, Analysis of the Global Enterprise Social Networking Market, finds the total number of full-suite enterprise social platform subscribers is expected to go up from 208 million in 2013 to 535 million in 2018. Currently, there are about 2 billion workers worldwide who could benefit from enterprise social technologies across numerous industries, organizations, locations and job roles, says the firm. This research includes a market overview, external challenges, forecast and trends, market share and competitive analysis, and a last word of analyst predictions and recommendations.
“Enterprise social networking continues to have mass appeal as it combines the user-friendliness and relationship-oriented nature of consumer social media with more powerful features and enterprise-grade control,” said Frost and Sullivan Information and Communication Technologies program manager and industry principal Robert Arnold. “Moreover, its ability to significantly improve business agility, responsiveness, innovation, and customer service owing to increased employee access to information and expertise bolsters the market.”
The benefits of enhancing business through social channels are resonating with decision-makers, but every organization needs to set realistic expectations and measure performance (sometimes creatively) to make the value proposition meaningful for their specific situation. A shift in employee behavior and company culture is required to foster contribution and engagement by the critical mass of users needed to make enterprise social networking successful, notes the firm.
In addition, the future of enterprise collaboration requires a smarter combination of different tools that can be customized to best fit each organization’s and workgroup’s unique needs. Manufacturers started delivering on these requirements, with some leading platforms offering strong analytics and reporting functionality that not only demonstrate the true value of enterprise social capabilities, but also give companies globally relevant insights to adjust their business strategies as warranted by market conditions and other external and internal factors.
Nevertheless, governance, risk, compliance, and security concerns—particularly in regulated industries and lines of business—will remain a key challenge until enterprise social networking solutions mature further, and customers become more educated on its value, according to the report. The financial services sector is already said to be among the leading adopters of these solutions owing to better education, careful planning, and well-defined implementation and usage strategies.
“Likewise, organizations of all sizes across different industries could benefit from enterprise social networking solutions,” states Arnold. “It will be important, however, for end users globally to determine the best deployment model (hosted or premises-based), features, and use what will deliver the most value for them.”
Analysis of the Global Enterprise Social Networking Market is part of Frost and Sullivan’s Conferencing and Collaboration Growth Partnership Service program. The firm’s related studies include: Analysis of the Global Web Conferencing Market, North American VoIP Access and SIP Trunking Services Market, and North American Audio Conferencing Services Market. All research included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants.
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