“Social business” is a term that has gained a completely new meaning in the recent years. Nowadays social business is seen as a business that adapts its social strategy and tools to best fit its business processes and content. The main focus of social business lies within intersection of content and social, which happens by integrating social into the underlying workflow of the business.
While social media has helped companies to be more customer-centric, with social business you bring the focus on the communication, sharing, development and processes inside the company. What is even more important, social business spotlights the biggest asset of each company: its employees and their activities. This goes with the notion that people do business with people, not companies, and it is important that the employees are front and center of the digital activities of a company.
The study showed that at least 57% of companies made some investments in enterprise social in 2011. It is widely seen and considered as a transformational opportunity.
The survey showed that the benefits from becoming a social business have been phenomenal. The companies that work on their social reported:
- 37% increase in project collaboration and productivity;
- 30% higher employee satisfaction;
- 32% reduction in time to find answer;
- 27% reduction in email.
Externally, as part of the same survey, customers reported:
- 31% increase in customer retention;
- 34% higher brand awareness;
- 27% increase in new customer sales;
- 28% decrease in call support volume.
And it is just the beginning of the social business era. We believe that those companies who take the lead in adopting it as a fundamental business practice will become the economic powerhouses of the 21st century.
