More

    6 Strategies for Being Successful with Social Collaboration

    Communication is vital to any business, but it is only one part of what it means to collaborate. There isn’t a company or business that doesn’t need its employees to interact with colleagues on a daily basis. These interactions are about getting employees together to share information, solve problems, make informed decisions, and ultimately work together to get their jobs done. It’s important for enterprises to invest in technologies and applications that facilitate and provide a means for employees to easily connect and collaborate. Typically, an enterprise social collaboration solution can be used to do this, and when implemented correctly, can drive significant business value.

    Enterprise social collaboration solutions are most successful when they contribute to business value and benefits that address company goals. To ensure successful initiatives, the technology needs to be woven into the current processes and systems or fill current gaps so it becomes a natural part of how people get their work done.

    In this slideshow, SAP Jam has outlined six tips for successfully implementing collaboration solutions to derive maximum value.

    6 Strategies for Being Successful with Social Collaboration - slide 1

    Implementing Collaboration Solutions

    Click through for six tips organizations can use to successfully implement collaboration solutions to derive maximum value, as identified by Daisy Hernandez, global VP of product management for SAP Jam Collaboration.

    6 Strategies for Being Successful with Social Collaboration - slide 2

    Pick the Right Tool

    Pick the tool that meets your business needs.

    The collaboration market is vast and not all solutions are designed for the same purposes. The key to selecting the right solution is understanding the business problems that need to be solved and not being distracted by features that might not materially drive toward achieving specific results. Before beginning the research phase, define the issues across the enterprise that need to be solved and then find the right technologies and applications that can address these challenges.

    6 Strategies for Being Successful with Social Collaboration - slide 3

    Align with Business Objectives

    Link collaboration initiatives to specific business objectives.

    There are no universal social collaboration KPIs – the success of a collaboration solution will be measured by improving overall business performance. For example, companies typically focus on increasing revenue, scaling an organization, reducing employee turnover, increasing customer service satisfaction, and more. Any collaboration initiatives, in combination with the right business applications, should connect back to these metrics, demonstrating how the solution is relevant to employees’ day-to-day tasks that improve the company’s business objectives.  

    6 Strategies for Being Successful with Social Collaboration - slide 4

    Connect the Right People

    Connect the right people, not all people.

    A collaboration solution is more than just connecting employees – they need to understand who they can connect with, such as industry experts or employees who have done similar work. There shouldn’t be barriers within the system. Teams must have the ability to connect with partners, suppliers, and customers as needed in a way that is secure and traceable; not all of their business activities are limited to internal employees.

    6 Strategies for Being Successful with Social Collaboration - slide 5

    Establish Guidelines

    Establish clear and consistent guidelines.

    Social collaboration applications will change the way employees communicate and interact. Teams can prepare for this change by setting guidelines or defining the right use cases for when it’s appropriate to use and not use these applications. By clearly outlining the use of the application, employees will adopt it across the enterprise because they will know how and when to use it.

    6 Strategies for Being Successful with Social Collaboration - slide 6

     

    Integrate with Key Business Processes

    Integrate collaboration with key business data and processes.

    Information and data from other business systems need to be integrated into the collaboration application. By collecting relevant data and content together for a specific business process, employees have the right context to determine what problem should be solved, what decisions need to be made, and what experts need to be involved. Collaboration doesn’t work if there are silos of information, so the application should be a valuable resource with the most up-to-date information.

    6 Strategies for Being Successful with Social Collaboration - slide 7

    Keep Content Fresh

    Create user-friendly rules to keep content fresh.

    People want applications that have the latest information and are easy to access. Those driving collaborative business processes need to develop governance policies to ensure the content in the collaboration application stays relevant and organized. The approach must be balanced, as too much governance will discourage employees from using the application, and too little can result in outdated, inaccurate information and decreased use.

    Get the Free Newsletter!

    Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends, and analysis.

    Latest Articles