CRM - July 2008 - (Page 14)

CRM TRENDS AND NEWS ANALYSIS ON THE SCENE: WEB 2.0 CRM’s a Social Animal As enterprise social computing takes off—and employees clamor for more—CRM providers scramble to connect, as well S ocial networking is really con- networking will involve applying Ennecting, it seems: Revenue in the terprise 2.0 functionalities to business sector has grown 191 percent in processes, such as CRM—all in hope of the past year, according to IDC. finding the return on investment (ROI) Forrester Research predicts that Enter- for money spent getting wired into prise 2.0 spending will be a $4.6 billion social networks. “People are taking a functional busiindustry by the year 2013. With increased ness need that you can attach momentum, rising adoption on the enterprise level, and The idea is to create an ROI to, and using social media to experiment and see noticeable marketing and if they can expand ROIs,” branding opportunities for “a unique set of Happe says. She adds that businesses—all readily ap- communities tightly employees are now engaging parent at May’s Web 2.0 integrated to the Enterprise 2.0 tools beyond Conference in San Franthose of blogs and wikis, and cisco—social networking product we use.” focusing more on social has clearly spread into the mainstream. Google’s effort to create its media with increased conversation on OpenSocial standard for application sites and platforms such as Facebook, programming interfaces (APIs) among MySpace, and LinkedIn. Employees, in social-networking companies is another their personal lives, are increasingly using social networks on the consumer sign of a maturing marketplace. Rachel Happe, Digital Business Econ- level; that puts more pressure on enteromy researcher with IDC, is among prises to adopt social media applicathose who think the next step with social tions, but it also breeds more familiarity. CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | JULY 2008 According to the IDC report, “2007 Social Networking Takes Hold,” authored by Happe, enterprise social media solutions have started to emerge and are passing up their small-to-midsizebusiness counterparts. And not every enterprise social network has to rely on (or hook into) Facebook: According to a Time column by an executive of the search intelligence firm Hitwise, the aggregate market share of MySpace and Facebook among U.S. Internet users only accounts for roughly half of all visits to the Hitwise Social Network category. Hitwise lists more than 4,700 other sites in that category— meaning there’s a lot of niche and specialized networking experience out there. Take Trampoline Systems’ recent release of Sonar Dashboard, an entire social-computing platform created for enterprises. Sonar Dashboard is similar to Facebook only in that it allows users to connect with other users. However, Dashboard is designed specifically for the enterprise, allowing employees not only to create individual profiles, but to share information regarding work projects, contacts, and interests. User information is dynamically generated, providing the most up-to-date data for sharing. The Dashboard product also maps out relationships among employees in the enterprise, adding visualization to complicated, complex, and growing companies. (Oracle introduced similar enterprise social computing capabilities with the release of its CRM On Demand 15.) “You’ve got a generation of people in the workforce who are used to having these tools to search, reach out, and connect with anybody,” says Charles Armstrong, the founder of Trampoline. “When they go into work, they’ve still got these information systems which are rigid. It’s the employees who are pushing the drive.” www.destinationCRM.com 14 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - July 2008

CRM - July 2008 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point CRM’s a Social Animal SAP Looks to ‘Change the Game' CRM on Twitter CRM to the Max A Prescription for Satisfaction Required Reading Cover Story: Is Microsoft Winning the CRM Race? Jumping into the SaaS Pool Say What? Another Bright Idea Out of Edison A Small Biz Blossoms Biting Off the Right Amount Something for a Rainy Day Connect Re:Tooling Pint of View

CRM - July 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.