Enterprise Social Networking Technology
Embracing a New Competitive Advantage Strategy
A White Paper
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Phone: (860) 444-6989 | Fax: (215) 243-7454 | www.epathlearning.com
© ePath Learning 2013
Introduction
In these dynamic economic times doing more with less has become the norm. Demanding
customers and the proliferation of products and service have driven prices down globally;
therefore there is increasing pressure to reduce costs. The current economic climate is both
challenging and competitive with much uncertainty. Our global marketplace is in a constant
state of change and is more “connected” than ever before. The playing field is level for many
organizations and differentiation is difficult – competition becomes more aggressive every day.
What does a company have to do in order to improve its competitiveness in this type of
environment? Knowledge, data, and analysis of data are all critical for success. Additionally,
companies need to embrace cultural competency and be adaptable to rapidly changing
circumstances. There’s a strong emphasis these days on open communications and
transparency as well as having a knowledgeable and empowered talent pool. The bottom line
is that businesses of all sizes have to go the extra distance in order to maximize their
competitiveness and ultimately their profitability. They need to optimize their business
performance at all levels in order to gain competitive advantage, grow their client bases and
increase revenues & profitability.
Business performance optimization requires making strategic decisions – developing long-term
strategies to improve productivity, enhance business efficiencies and reduce unnecessary
operating costs. Investing in systems, solutions and new technologies can help companies to
improve business performance. Technology is rapidly becoming a strategic asset for
organizations. Technology has increasingly become part of organizations’ overall business
strategy and should be aligned with strategic business goals and objectives. Technology
enables businesses to maximize their employees’ contributions and ultimately business
performance.
In fact, analysts at the research firm Forrester expect modest growth in IT investments for 2013
and beyond. These analysts believe emerging technologies with the potential to transform
businesses will drive future IT spending. These technologies include: Software as a Service
(SaaS), business analytics, and mobile devices.
300 State Street, Suite 400, New London, CT 06320
Phone: (860) 444-6989 | Fax: (215) 243-7454 | www.epathlearning.com
© ePath Learning 2013
Enterprise Social Networking Technology
Enterprise social networking technology is one facet of technology that’s gaining a lot of ground
in businesses of all sizes. Social media and social networking has become predominant in many
of our lives, whether it is Facebook, LinkedIn, Pintrest or Twitter. Organizations are recognizing
the power and draw of this type of technology and are now implementing it as a strategy to
help maximize their operating potential.
So what’s driving the use of social technology? According to Forrester Research, the interest in
using social technology or platforms for business is driven by capturing and reusing knowledge,
maintaining and maximizing human connections across remote workforces, and modernizing
systems to meet workforce demands.
1. Capturing and Re-using knowledge - Utilizing social networking technology reduces the
overall “silo effect” that many companies experience. The silo effect can be an enormous
hindrance to businesses so breaking down those barriers that impede progress is of great
importance. Through social network technology, users can collaborate, share best practices
and expertise so that knowledge becomes transparent. Moreover, companies are realizing
that informal knowledge and learning interactions are extremely important, and they are
compelled to capture it and make it available and useful to their company as a whole.
2. Maintaining and maximizing human connections across remote workforces - Thanks to so
many advances in technology, the days of 40+ hours spent in the office are coming to an
end. Welcome in the era of the remote workforce. According to the market research firm
International Data Corporation, by 2015, the world's mobile worker population will reach
1.3 billion, representing 37.2% of the total workforce. There is a growing need to
accommodate this rapidly growing paradigm shift. The greatest challenge of engaging
remote workers is providing them with a support network and facilitating communications
to remove any unnecessary barriers.
3. Modernizing systems to meet workforce demands - Tech savvy individuals, or the millennial
generation, are joining the workforce at rapid rates. Not only do these individuals thrive on
social media technology, they demand it.
300 State Street, Suite 400, New London, CT 06320
Phone: (860) 444-6989 | Fax: (215) 243-7454 | www.epathlearning.com
© ePath Learning 2013
Generally speaking, enterprise social networking technology enables employees to connect,
collaborate, and learn from each other, informally and online in a micro blogging format. It’s
about people and socializing and sharing rather than broadcasting information to the masses.
Employees are able to share information as short messages, updates, documents, videos and
links with other interested employees. This technology can be found as a cloud-based SaaS
solution that is mobile user friendly or can be installed directly on an organization’s server.
Since an underlying premise of enterprise social networking is informal learning, social
networking should be incorporated as part of an overall learning and development strategy.
Enterprise social networking provides an efficient way to reap the vast intellectual capital of
your workforce and build dialogue-based communications across the business. Traditional
features and functionality of enterprise social networking solutions include the following:
Integration
Enterprise Discussions
Knowledge Base
Favorites Identification
Files and Multimedia
Security and Administrative Controls
Instant Messaging
Expert Exchange
Groups
Notifications
Private Messaging
User Profiles
Seamlessly integrated with a robust Learning
Management System (LMS) to offer comprehensive
formal and informal learning opportunities.
Users can start a conversation, read posts, and actively
collaborate with other users in real-time.
Each conversation is archived and is fully searchable in
a centralized location.
Messages can be tagged to make content organized and
easy to find.
Files, images and videos and links can be uploaded and
shared within user groups or enterprise-wide.
Messages can be sent privately and securely within
your organization and built-in administrative features to
maintain network control.
Chat with other users that are online.
Users can instantly locate experts within the enterprise
by expertise or specialty.
Create and join private or public groups and collaborate
in teams.
Automated notifications can be sent to new members
Users can create private one-on-one dialog with other
group members.
A personal profile is set-up by ach user that designates
their specialty, expertise and contact information.
300 State Street, Suite 400, New London, CT 06320
Phone: (860) 444-6989 | Fax: (215) 243-7454 | www.epathlearning.com
© ePath Learning 2013
Benefits of Implementing an Enterprise Social Network
There are a myriad of benefits associated with implementing enterprise social networking
technology.
1. Optimizes employee interaction: The use of enterprise social networking technology
enhances weak relationships that may exist throughout your organization. People who
wouldn’t normally speak to one another now have that opportunity to get to know each
other. If an organization typically struggles with having successful employee interactions,
then enterprise social networking can give employees the opportunity to find common
ground, and create personal connections that allow for thriving working environments
rather than environments that can be adversarial.
2. Enriches existing business processes and workflows: Social networking can be used to
deliver information to employees about improvements needed for operational processes or
workflows in a quick and efficient manner. Feedback regarding changes can be immediate.
3. Improves collaboration efforts: Enterprise social networking fosters collaboration across
teams, departments, divisions, functions, etc. It can break down the silos or geographic
boundaries that traditionally isolate groups of employees. Transparency flourishes and
employees can be “on the same page.” The technology provides a common platform by
which multi-disciplinary teams can meet, share ideas and skills, solve problems, and
ultimately evolve together. Additionally, Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) can easily be
sourced online to add immediate value to the task at hand.
4. Reduces expenses: Enterprise social networks can reduce the need to have multiple
meetings – conversations and collaboration can be carried out online in virtual meetings.
This can greatly reduce travel and meeting expenses.
5. Reduces email traffic: Discussion threads target issues and support problem solving, thus
reducing the need and time spent on emails. Also, take into account pertinent information
being stored in email rather than in a centralized area where other employees can access it
– another benefit of reducing email traffic.
300 State Street, Suite 400, New London, CT 06320
Phone: (860) 444-6989 | Fax: (215) 243-7454 | www.epathlearning.com
© ePath Learning 2013
6. Interact with partners/customers: Information can be shared with business partners and
customers. Feedback can be monitored and information such as trend identification can be
shared in real-time to help drive business processes and innovation.
7. Improve employee engagement, training, retention: Employees feel more connected and
have a greater sense of empowerment and belonging. Better communication means
greater business insight for everyone – this enhances employee engagement. Enterprise
social networking also proves to be successful for on-boarding new employees, enabling
them to be brought up to speed more expeditiously.
8. Better knowledge management and improved decision making: Enterprise social
networking encourages innovation. Improved information sharing means faster responses
to business and customer demands. Additionally, executives are traditionally forced to
make decisions for the organization when the information they need to make these
decisions lies with employees at varying levels of the organization – having access to these
employees helps execs make more informed decisions.
9. Overall time savings: When ideas and resources can be pooled rapidly, projects can be
completed faster. Less time spent emailing or searching for answers from internal experts
leads to more employee time being productive. Also, small instances of time savings add up
and can have a great impact on the bottom-line.
300 State Street, Suite 400, New London, CT 06320
Phone: (860) 444-6989 | Fax: (215) 243-7454 | www.epathlearning.com
© ePath Learning 2013
Putting It All Together - The Competitive Advantage Factor
Gaining and sustaining competitive advantage depends greatly on corporate strategy and is
determined by the competitive dynamics within a company’s industry. For example, a company
in a service-oriented industry seeks competitive advantage differently than a company in the
manufacturing industry; however, the underlying principle is the same – to sustain superior and
optimized performance in relation to the competition. In other words, a company that
outperforms its competitors and creates more economic value for its product or services has a
competitive advantage.
In support of competitive advantage, business performance can be optimized and value can be
added indirectly throughout each stage of a company’s value chain. A company’s value chain
typically consists of: Research & Development, Production, Sales & Marketing, and Customer
Service. Implementing an enterprise social network proactively supports optimizing business
performance in each of these functional areas.
The overall premise of enterprise social networking supports value creation by increasing
productivity within an organization; however the chart below provides additional examples of
how value can be created by functional area.
Value Chain – Functional Area
User Examples
Research & Development

Open collaboration empowers R&D employees to be resourceful
and innovative

Open and rapid communication brings employees up to speed
quickly regarding new product developments

Information that is typically lost with a departing employee
becomes enterprise knowledge and is accessible to all new
employees

Changes to business processes or workflows can be
communicated and immediately initiated

Capture and share best practices

Allowing external customers access to the system builds user
communities that support: branding initiatives, customer insights,
trend identification, focus group research, and generation of
customer referrals

Open communications across the enterprise supports internal
branding at all levels
Production
Sales & Marketing
300 State Street, Suite 400, New London, CT 06320
Phone: (860) 444-6989 | Fax: (215) 243-7454 | www.epathlearning.com
© ePath Learning 2013
Customer Service
General

Share sales and marketing tools in a centralized area

Immediate access to SMEs during the sales cycle

Locate SMEs quickly for rapid response to customer inquiries

Share information in a centralized location for problem research
and resolution

Informal learning opportunities are maximized

Removes geographic limitations

Less time spent emailing or searching for information increases
employee productivity time

Opens collaboration and reduces the “silo effect”

Success stories can be shared to support employee engagement

Immediate cost savings can be realized through virtual
engagements rather than live meetings
In a publication titled Capturing Business Value with Social Technologies, McKinsey Global
Institute performed an in-depth study of four industry sectors and suggested that “social
platforms can unlock $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in economic surplus value within the four
industries and two-thirds of this value creation lies in improving communication and
collaboration within and across enterprises.”
Implementing and adopting an enterprise social network can provide organizations with a
unique approach, as part of a corporate strategy, to gain and sustain competitive advantage.
Companies willing to embrace this technology can maximize their business value by
empowering their employees through communication and collaboration.
For additional information regarding enterprise social networks and learning management
systems please contact ePath Learning, Inc.
300 State Street, Suite 400, New London, CT 06320
Phone: (860) 444-6989 | Fax: (215) 243-7454 | www.epathlearning.com
© ePath Learning 2013