By Chris Lee

Online collaboration is big business. Assisted by the absorption of ‘cloud computing’ – online software as a service – businesses have been able to streamline operations and work on projects together far more effectively, regardless of location. Companies are using low-cost collaboration tools such as Huddle, Dropbox and Google Docs, and social networks Yammer and LinkedIn to share documents and communicate ideas.

One company at the forefront of business collaboration is Mvine, which creates tailored business networks for organisations. NMK caught up with the company’s managing director Frank Joshi to learn more about collaboration.

What are the major trends in social business right now?

Every year leading analyst organisation Gartner Research outlines its predictions for the top technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organisations in 2011 and beyond. This year Cloud Computing was number one, with Gartner predicting that the next three years will see the delivery of a range of Cloud-based services as more and more organisations adopt this model. Number 2 was Mobile Applications and Media Tablets. Social Communications and Collaboration was number 3, with Gartner predicting that by 2016 social type technologies will be integrated with most business applications.

So where are we now? The early adopters and the analyst world have started to understand the opportunities, challenges and threats, whilst the followers are beginning to feel that they are being left behind. This is a repeat of what happened at the dawn of the internet age during 1995–2000. Many companies took years to dip their toe into the water and create a website, but eventually everyone did and now who doesn’t have a website?

With regard to ‘social business & social business software’ this is still an unknown entity for many, if not most organisations, as they try to grapple with the challenges of what their staff have access to as a consumer, versus what they can provide within their organisations. Equally many organisations have no idea that their staff are already using ‘free’ external services to conduct business, share content and knowledge. That said, for the early adopters, the decisions and discussions have moved on to a more pragmatic and informed phase. Companies looking at using social media software and social media for marketing are beginning to consider the following:

Whilst many companies started with free services and platforms they have, through experience, started to understand their limitations which is driving the current set of trends including, but not limited to:

A) Security

Companies are beginning to understand the lack of security inherent in many of the available services. As compliance and regulation increases, does this issue grow in importance and relevance? Is the content secure, is it accessible only by the right people? Can user data be hacked? Is the platform in the right jurisdiction?

B) Identity management

For many business applications, especially when collaboration occurs with external users such as clients, suppliers and partners, having a proper identity management system is critical if the content, data and knowledge is of commercial value. You have to know that the person you are collaborating with is who they are supposed to be.

C) Business intelligence and social analytics

Social analytics, specifically, is also a top trend right now for companies looking to generate real results from their social business strategy. For companies to use social business tools to their full advantage a deep understanding of how they are used, what’s popular and what people are doing, is vital. Social analytics is topping the lists in Gartner’s research on top technology trends in 2011. Equally with a proper analytics deployment, companies can provide a full audit trail and tick all the regulatory requirements for audit and compliance.

D) Alignment to business processes, integration and scalability

Free sites are great to test the water, but what happens when your group or community grows such that the one discussion board is now no longer any use to the majority of users? Can the group reflect the different role types and privileges that exist in business? Companies looking to deploy new services appreciate that ‘mashing’ applications does not always work and that any new service has to integrate with existing legacy systems. Will the platform service scale with my needs?

What are your top tips for companies looking to use social media to enhance their internal and external business communications/practices?

We are living in a complex business world where compliance, security, surety of data and governance need to be part of any discussion before a product or service is used. Equally, as with all things in life, it is critical to understand how these new services work, how they can add value to your business and what, if any, are the consequences and potential downsides. Failure to do so can have a catastrophic or detrimental effect on your business.

First steps - Before doing anything you must first ask yourself a number of questions: what do you want to achieve, what are your strategic aims and ambitions, what problems are you trying to solve, what do you want to achieve?

Building a community - If you want to build a community, what do you want get out of it, do you have the resources to manage and maintain a community? Once started, if you do not keep up the momentum, communities can easily crumble, which in turn will reflect badly on you.

External communities - Make sure you properly vet people who apply to join. Many groups have suffered from ‘member pollution’ by allowing people into their communities who are either not real or purport to be someone they are not, which has a detrimental effect on the group and its integrity.

Whilst free sites cost nothing, will you get business value out of them? Will you have full control over what happens, including any advertising that might appear? Do you own the data and information? Unless you run your own platform, some of the above questions can be difficult to answer! Will you get access to any analytics which would tell you how the community is being used and by whom?

Do remain compliant and secure

The additional pressures of increasing compliance and security regimes are making business relationships more complex. Therefore delivering transparency, visibility and control in a multifaceted world is critical when choosing your collaboration platform. In a world where businesses are at risk of financial crime and e-fraud, it is important that the vendor you choose knows your organisation and performs effective due diligence when implementing your collaboration platform.

Social media

When used properly, these external tools can be incredibly effective in getting your message out to the market. That said, what if the Twitter page is run by an individual, not on behalf of your organisation? If they leave so does the marketing channel you’ve invested in and the connections you’ve made. Equally, if the content is not approved and the individual is representing your organisation, problems can be created. Reputations can take years to build and minutes to be destroyed.

Choose the service/portal that fits your organisation

Today organisations are spending millions of pounds on IT products that are not generating business value in the near future. Start small but smart by choosing a vendor that discusses business strategy and outcomes, not modules and end-to-end solutions. Run pilots and engage your users.

But do consider the future

Ideally an organisation should be able to roll out a collaboration platform with minimal follow-up support. The collaboration platform should be intuitive and user friendly, reducing the need for further consultation - this is what Mvine aims to provide. Mvine also offers a variety of services ranging from consulting, design and development to hosting and support, all of which an organisation should consider carefully when choosing their collaboration platform.

Which brands are using social business tools to good effect for internal and external use?

One very good example is The Information Technologists’ Company (ITC). Although it is one of the youngest, The ITC is one of the largest and fastest growing Livery Companies in the City of London. They needed a solution to support both the members and administration in managing its numerous committees, panels, social groups, educational and charitable activities. ITC is full of active and enthusiastic members who are short on time but still may be active in several committees. Equally, they needed a service to support conversations and collaboration with many external organisations with whom they either support or work with. The platform Mvine created for the ITC was customer branded, linked to their internal membership database, secure, scalable and offered payment facilities and full event management.

The company has benefited in a number of ways:

• With document management and easy group creation facilities, the committees and panels were quickly deployed and self-managed. This has resulted in information being published in real time with the right people getting the right information, whilst driving down internal administration costs.
• With easy company-member communication facilities member engagement has been dramatically improved.
• With member search and member-member collaboration facilities there is now a more vibrant connected and engaged community.