Cisco Cisco WebEx Social for Mobile White Paper

Those organizations that successfully deploy social business systems find numerous business benefits, such as

increased knowledge sharing between staff and faster responses to queries and questions. A more physical and

direct cost benefit identified is that fewer multi-copy emails with attachments are used, massively reducing

network load and server storage requirements. Figure 2 outlines various benefits organizations receive in

adopting an SBS.

A more intangible aspect of these systems is that of employee engagement or belonging. Humans tend to be

social in nature and a work environment that embodies and incorporates this aspect of human nature can deliver

a critical element to employee success—employee fulfilment. The majority of employees want to engage with

others, and it helps to stimulate and empower them to do their job more effectively.
Couple this with the fact that the primary stakeholders of social business systems tend not to be IT but

departments such as human resources, corporate communications, and lines of business, and we have a

platform that is advanced by the business, empowering the users (be they internal or external customers and

business partners) and delivering productivity and immediacy of business-changing proportions.

Issues

However the deployment of an SBS is not without challenges. Figure 3 displays further AIIM research that details

the biggest issues that users have found to date when adopting an SBS within organizations. 
The biggest issue identified was that of users’ reluctance to contribute. This highlights the fact that just because a

business has deployed an SBS, it does not necessarily mean that the SBS has the correct blend of features, or

that the organization has properly communicated the goals and usage expectations of the SBS (see the section,

Requirements of a Social Business System, below). However, a well-designed and deployed SBS will counter

these issues with facilities such as ease of use, higher engagement and visibility for remote workers, personalized

content, and a consistent, familiar interface. Deployment efforts will also use an organization’s governance and

change management programs to affect SBS adoption.
Without properly selling the benefits of any system to employees and engaging them in its selection and

deployment sets that project up for failure and an SBS is no different. However, a well-planned, communicated,

and executed rollout of an SBS should also resolve other issues such as “too much social, not enough business”

and “domination by those who want to get noticed,” although ongoing monitoring and coaching once the system

goes live will further success.
The rollout must address the concerns about the management of any content created in the various social

channels available in an SBS, which by default fall outside of the standard ECM or RM processes. Definition of

what content is relevant for inclusion into these processes, and the mechanics of migration of such content, is a

crucial aspect in delivering the primary corporate- and compliance-related aspects of social business systems.

Figure 3 (below) highlights issues in adopting an SBS.

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© AIIM 2012 www.aiim.org / © Cisco Systems Inc. 2012 www.cisco.com

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More knowledge sharing between staff

Faster responses to queries and quesons

Fewer mul-copy emails with aachments

Beer cohesion and team-building

Beer innovaon from ideas and comments

Shorter mescales on collaborave projects

Beer  staff/management communicaons

Improved accuracy of collaborave documents

Less travel me and cost

Smoother running of mul-department processes
Improved retenon of new-recruits/younger staff