Social Business Collaboration:
Five Best Practices, Three Market Trends
Use of consumer-grade social media and collaboration technologies has
become commonplace in an enterprise context. Much less common is the
use of secure and compliant social business collaboration solutions,
which foster improved teamwork and information-sharing that measurably
improves business results. Aberdeen’s research identifies five best practices
that consistently describe the top performers in social business
collaboration, and provides insights into three market trends in how the
infrastructure supporting collaboration initiatives is being implemented.
February 2014
Research Brief
Aberdeen’s Research Briefs
explore one or more key
findings from a primary
research study, including key
performance indicators, Bestin-Class insights, and solution
provider insights.
Business Context: Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts
Aberdeen’s research has highlighted five consistent attributes among those
organizations that excel in the execution of their social business
collaboration strategies (see Related Research at the end of this report):
•
Get the right skills on the right project, the first time
•
Connect using social tools to accelerate learning and act rapidly
•
Focus on optimizing business outcomes for customers
•
Cut across departmental silos to drive lasting, cultural change
•
Go beyond using social technologies for basic communications,
applying them purposefully to transform core business processes
Aberdeen’s 4Q 2013 study of the social business collaboration practices of
nearly 700 organizations has helped to ascertain the business impact of
current social media and collaboration tools. About 300 respondents were
active users of collaboration, and of these about 200 provided assessments
of their organization’s business performance — the responses of the latter
group were used to identify social business collaboration best practices for
this report. To distinguish leading performance, Aberdeen used three
primary performance indicators:
•
Timely information access — social sharing and collaboration
technologies should lead to better information access
•
Operational efficiency — advanced social business practices
should lead to better teamwork, on-time project delivery, and
lower cost of sales
•
Customer-centricity — improved information flow and a
collaboration culture should result in increased customer
responsiveness, and better customer retention
Determining the Best-in-Class
To distinguish leaders (top 20%)
from average (middle 50%) and
lagging (bottom 30%)
organizations in the area of
social business
collaboration, Aberdeen used
the following performance
indicators:
√ Timely access to information
√ Operational efficiency,
defined as the ratio of
potential productivity to
actual productivity
√ Year-over-year improvement
in response time to
customer inquiries
Companies with top results
using these criteria earned Bestin-Class status.
This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group. Aberdeen Group's methodologies provide for objective fact-based research and
represent the best analysis available at the time of publication. Unless otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group, Inc.
and may not be reproduced, distributed, archived, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent by Aberdeen Group, Inc.
Social Business Collaboration:
Five Best Practices, Three Market Trends
Page 2
Leading Drivers for Current Investments
The leading drivers for current investments in social business collaboration
initiatives are illustrated in Figure 1. Supporting the meetings and discussions
that are needed among team members — many of whom may be
geographically dispersed — for an engaged and effective workforce is a
fundamental driver of current investments, for all respondents. Beyond basic
engagement, executive leadership is also looking for a more dynamic way to
facilitate teamwork throughout the organization. There is also a general
recognition among all respondents that poor communication and lack of
teamwork has a negative impact on the organization’s productivity.
Figure 1 also highlights some of the challenges of competing in today’s
markets. Companies know that to remain competitive, they need to
innovate — a point felt even more acutely by the non-leaders, in
comparison to the leaders — and they acknowledge that their current
decision-making processes need to get faster, to keep pace with market
changes.
Figure 1: Social Business Collaboration Engages the Workforce,
and Helps Organizations Innovate and Compete at Market Speed
“Our geographically and
organizationally dispersed team
needs an asynchronous — but
focused — means to
collaborate and get things done.
Tools for project management
and collaboration reduce the
amount of non-productive
phone tag.”
~ CXO, Management
Consulting Services,
Southern US
Source: Aberdeen Group, February 2014
The leaders in Aberdeen’s study were also found to be more effective in
their collaboration practices. For example, they were more than twice as
likely as all others to assess their organization’s collaboration initiative as
“Very Effective” or “Extremely Effective” in dimensions such as:
•
Providing timely access to business-critical information (37% for
leaders, compared to 14% for all others)
© 2014 Aberdeen Group.
www.aberdeen.com
Telephone: 617 854 5200
Fax: 617 723 7897
Social Business Collaboration:
Five Best Practices, Three Market Trends
Page 3
•
Finding subject-matter experts (33% compared to 16%)
•
Providing mobile access to the collaboration platform (27%
compared to 13%)
•
Assisting in on-time delivery of projects or campaigns (30%
compared to 16%)
This last point in particular reminds us that all of this information-sharing,
collaboration, and teamwork is relevant only to the extent that it helps
organizations to achieve their ultimate objective: to deliver value to their
customers.
The year-over-year changes in selected performance metrics for the
respondents in Aberdeen’s study are summarized in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Leaders Benefit from Collaboration — Selected Metrics
“We now spend much less
time churning to answer e-mail,
find meeting times, and
respond to operational needs.”
~ General Manager, Financial
Services Consulting,
Southern US
Source: Aberdeen Group, February 2014
Success begets success: over the past 12 months, the leaders increased the
time spent collaborating online (43% more than all others), boosted the
percentage of end-users with access to collaboration (80% more), and
increased the degree of regular usage (60% more). In turn, the leaders
improved their average time-to-information (50% more than all others), and
reported 83% greater improvements in operational efficiency and in the
time required to make key business decisions.
Social Business Collaboration: Three Market Trends
Three trends seen in Aberdeen’s research are particularly worthy of note in
the context of social business collaboration: policy-driven security and
© 2014 Aberdeen Group.
www.aberdeen.com
Telephone: 617 854 5200
Fax: 617 723 7897
Social Business Collaboration:
Five Best Practices, Three Market Trends
Page 4
compliance; increasingly mature mobility initiatives; and a shift towards
cloud-based delivery.
Bring Your Own Collaboration … If It Complies with Policy
Over half (56%) of the leaders in Aberdeen’s study permit their end-users
to use their own mobile device to collaborate at work, as compared to just
one third (36%) of all others. But a strategy that allows a self-provisioned
mobile workforce to collaborate on-the-go isn’t really enterprise-ready if
it’s not in compliance with corporate policies regarding security and privacy.
The top performers clearly lead in this regard, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Social Business Collaboration is Compliant with Policies
for Security and Privacy — But Clearly Defining and
Communicating Policies to End-users Can Be Improved by All
“Our use of collaboration
technologies has increased new
product launch effectiveness, as
well as our ability to meet our
revenue and profit goals.”
~ Senior Executive, Sales
Strategy Consulting Services,
Eastern US
Source: Aberdeen Group, February 2014
Three-quarters (74%) of the top performers ensure that their collaboration
tools are secure and compliant, and that access to group workspaces is
controlled by policy, in comparison to less than half of all others. When it
comes to policies that are clearly defined and communicated to end-users,
however, just 2 out of 5 (42%) of the top performers and 1 out of 5 (22%)
of all others indicate having this as a current capability — an obvious area
for improvement. Relying on technologies to enforce policy makes sense —
but at the same time it isn’t reasonable to expect end-users to do the right
thing, when the right thing hasn’t been clearly defined and wellcommunicated.
© 2014 Aberdeen Group.
www.aberdeen.com
Telephone: 617 854 5200
Fax: 617 723 7897
Social Business Collaboration:
Five Best Practices, Three Market Trends
Page 5
Changing Context: Making It Mobile
A robust collaboration environment doesn’t require end-users to be
chained to their desktops to take advantage of its functionality. Providing
“equal access” collaboration to all end-users should be the goal, whether
they are at their desk, in a conference room down the hall, or halfway
around the world. A well-implemented mobile collaboration initiative is
realized by giving the right people access to the right information at the
right time, from flexible devices and locations — for the purpose of making
better business decisions. Collaboration without mobility falls short of
maximizing team productivity; mobility without collaboration emphasizes
the sizzle of technology over the steak of business purpose.
Aberdeen’s study on Harnessing the Power of Next-Generation Communications
(November 2013) provides insights into the current and planned use of
unified communications and collaboration infrastructure. The flexibility and
agility of any place / any time / any device access to collaboration capabilities
is a characteristic of the leading performers — for example, leaders are
much more likely to enable their collaborators to view and edit shared files
from a variety of devices and access methods (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Leaders Support Flexible Access to Collaboration Tools
Determining the Best-in-Class
To distinguish leaders (top
20%) from average (middle
50%) and lagging (bottom 30%)
organizations in the area of
unified communications and
collaboration, Aberdeen used
the following performance
indicators:
√ The frequency with which
information needs are timely
met
√ The year-over-year change
in end-user satisfaction with
their communications
system
Companies with top results
using these criteria earned
Best-in-Class status.
Source: Aberdeen Group, February 2014
Taking Collaboration to the Cloud
Aberdeen’s Harnessing the Power of Next-Generation Communications study
also found that over half of the top-performing organizations were already
hosting their communications and collaboration solutions in the cloud, with
© 2014 Aberdeen Group.
www.aberdeen.com
Telephone: 617 854 5200
Fax: 617 723 7897
Social Business Collaboration:
Five Best Practices, Three Market Trends
Page 6
strong additional intent for cloud-based deployments in the next 12 months
(Table 1).
Table 1: Collaboration Implementations are Moving to the Cloud
Cloud-based Communications
and Collaboration Systems
Leaders
All Others
Currently implemented
57%
41%
Plan to implement in the next 12 months
23%
37%
Source: Aberdeen Group, February 2014
Both leaders and all others see increased use of cloud-based infrastructure
— whether private, public, or hybrid — in support of their social business
collaboration initiatives (Figure 5). Although traditional implementations
(i.e., on-premise, self-hosted, self-managed) are clearly the incumbent,
Aberdeen’s research points to strong growth in cloud-based collaboration
over the next 12 to 24 months.
Implementation rate,
n=86
Figure 5: Traditional On-Premise Implementations are Shifting to a Mix of Cloud-based Options
11%
80%
60%
40%
79%
20%
5%
On-Premise Managed
Service
18%
62%
Followers
On premise, hosted on our
server, managed by us
14%
25%
22%
21%
Leaders
Followers
Leaders
Followers
On premise, hosted on our
server, managed by a vendor /
Hybrid Cloud
41%
14%
11%
0%
Leaders
6%
Self-Managed CloudHosted
Off premise, hosted in the
cloud, managed by us
19%
14%
12%
Leaders
Followers
'Hybrid cloud', a combination
of hosting in the cloud and on-
Source: Aberdeen Group, February 2014
Summary and Key Takeaways
•
Aberdeen’s research has highlighted five consistent attributes among
those organizations that excel in the execution of their social
business collaboration strategies:
o
Get the right skills on the right project, the first time
o
Connect using social tools to accelerate learning and act
rapidly
o
Focus on optimizing business outcomes for customers
o
Cut across departmental silos to drive lasting, cultural
change
o
Go beyond using social technologies for basic
communications, applying them purposefully to transform
core business processes
© 2014 Aberdeen Group.
www.aberdeen.com
Telephone: 617 854 5200
Fax: 617 723 7897
Social Business Collaboration:
Five Best Practices, Three Market Trends
Page 7
•
•
•
•
Leading drivers for current investments in social business
collaboration initiatives include:
o
Support for the necessary meetings and discussions
among team members, many of whom may be
geographically dispersed
o
Enablement of a more dynamic way to facilitate teamwork
throughout the organization, for a more engaged and
effective workforce
o
Recognition that poor communication and lack of teamwork
has a negative impact on the organization’s productivity
o
An explicit focus on competing more effectively, including
innovation and faster decision-making
The leaders in Aberdeen’s study were also found to be more
effective in their collaboration practices, including:
o
Providing timely access to business-critical information
o
Finding subject-matter experts
o
Providing mobile access to the collaboration platform
o
Assisting in on-time delivery of projects or campaigns
Success in social business collaboration begets additional success:
o
Over the past 12 months, the leaders in Aberdeen’s study
increased the time spent collaborating online, boosted the
percentage of end-users with access to collaboration tools, and
increased the degree of regular usage
o
In turn, the leaders improved their average time-toinformation, and reported significantly greater improvements
in operational efficiency and in the time required to make key
business decisions
In the context of social business collaboration, three trends seen in
Aberdeen’s research are particularly worthy of note:
o
Policy-driven security and compliance — a strategy
that allows a self-provisioned mobile workforce to
collaborate on-the-go isn’t really enterprise-ready if it’s not
in compliance with corporate policies regarding security and
privacy
o
Increasingly mature mobility initiatives — the leading
performers are characterized by the flexibility and agility of
any place / any time / any device access to collaboration
capabilities
o
A shift towards cloud-based delivery — use of cloudbased infrastructure — whether private, public, or hybrid
— in support of social business collaboration initiatives
should see strong growth over the next 12 to 24 months
© 2014 Aberdeen Group.
www.aberdeen.com
Telephone: 617 854 5200
Fax: 617 723 7897
Social Business Collaboration:
Five Best Practices, Three Market Trends
Page 8
For more information on this or other research topics, please visit
www.aberdeen.com.
Related Research
Enterprise Social Collaboration: Advanced
Collaboration Culture Is People Power;
December 2013
Harnessing the Power of Next-Generation
Communications; November 2013
Enterprise Social Collaboration: The
Collaborators’ Advantage; October 2013
When is Enough Mobile App Security
Actually Enough?; September 2013
Mastering MALM: the Enterprise Mobile
Application Lifecycle; July 2013
Fostering Innovation, Ideation, and Agility
with Enterprise-Grade Collaboration; May
2013
Enterprise-Grade Mobile Apps: Powering
Organizational Transformation; April
2013
Mobile App Crowdsourcery: Greater
Business Benefit with Less Budget
Growth; February 2013
Enterprise Mobility Management-as-aService: Cloud Control and Agility;
November 2012
Crowdsourcing Apps in a SoMoClo™
World; October 2012 [blog]
Next-Generation Enterprise Mobility:
Putting Mobile to Work; October 2012
Author: Andrew Borg, Research Director, Enterprise Mobility and
Collaboration ([email protected]); Derek E. Brink, Vice President
and Research Fellow, IT Security and IT GRC ([email protected])
For more than two decades, Aberdeen's research has been helping corporations worldwide become Best-in-Class.
Having benchmarked the performance of more than 644,000 companies, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to provide
organizations with the facts that matter — the facts that enable companies to get ahead and drive results. That's why
our research is relied on by more than 2.5 million readers in over 40 countries, 90% of the Fortune 1,000, and 93% of
the Technology 500.
As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen’s research provides insight and analysis to the Harte Hanks community of
local, regional, national and international marketing executives. Combined, we help our customers leverage the power
of insight to deliver innovative multichannel marketing programs that drive business-changing results. For additional
information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 854-5200, or to learn more about Harte Hanks, call
(800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.hartehanks.com.
This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group. Aberdeen Group's methodologies
provide for objective fact-based research and represent the best analysis available at the time of publication. Unless
otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group, Inc. and may not be
reproduced, distributed, archived, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent by
Aberdeen Group, Inc. (2014a)
© 2014 Aberdeen Group.
www.aberdeen.com
Telephone: 617 854 5200
Fax: 617 723 7897