A recent survey conducted by Proofpoint found that 8% of companies had terminated employees due to social media usage (common causes including sharing sensitive information on a network). And while the statistic seems significant, it only underscores one of several upcoming challenges nearly every organization will face as changes in people, process and technology fueled by the collective movement we call social media begin to transform business. Here are a few challenges that every organization should be planning for right now:
1. Integration. Becoming a "social business" (meaning true participation as opposed to leveraging social media as a new form of marketing) can impact nearly every function of a business. Marketing, PR, communications--even supply chain and any function that deals with employees. So where does it live? Is it a department? Do organizations hire a "Chief Social Officer" much like they would a Chief Technology Officer? All organizations will eventually grapple with integrating social into their entire ecosystem adopting either centralized, distributed or hybrid approaches.
2. Governance. Many organizations now understand that anything that can and will be said about them on the internet will be. The good, the bad, the ugly. And this includes content produced not only from the general public, but also from internal constituents such as employees. Organizations will not only need to begin actively listening so that they are in the know, but they will need rules of engagement for how they deal with multiple types of scenarios from responding to a compliment to dealing with a detractor to following up with an employee who just posted something inappropriate or sensitive.
3. Culture. All organizations fall somewhere on a spectrum of being "open" or "closed" meaning that they are either more transparent with how they operate and collaborative or they hoard knowledge internally. Consider that it's probable that the Zappos purchase by Amazon had a good deal to do with their notoriously open culture. Likewise, even Apple, which can be notoriously secretive, is benefiting by leveraging a strategy that opened up their iPhone application ecosystem. Sure Apple has a great deal of control over it, but for the first time in history, they have legions of people developing applications that run on their hardware. Organizations have the potential to benefit from embracing customers and employees in new ways, but will have to manage it intelligently and with purpose.
4. Human Resources. In order to transform from a business to a social business, companies are going to have to upgrade their HR protocols, as well as legal. And it's likely to be a never-ending process as new technologies continually hit the scene. Before there was Twitter, companies scrambled to publish blogging guidelines for employees, now the wrong tweet or Facebook status can get you fired. Organizations will not only need to update guidelines but actually train their people who may be leveraging social technologies for work. Customer service in particular comes to mind.
5. Measurement & ROI. Every organization will continue to struggle with measuring results and reporting ROI. Philosophically, this question can be answered with another question: "what's the ROI of e-mail"? But it's a question that won't go away. New social constructs will be needed to measure social initiatives such as attention (the size or number of participants actively engaged) or authority (the amount of influence a participant has in the ecosystem). Because social business is enabled by technology, it is by definition measurable. However, tying it to realized revenue or savings becomes more of a challenge.
In order for business to transform into something that can function in a less formal, fast moving social space--it will need to do so at scale. These 5 issues are but a handful of the types of growing pains we'll see as this happens.
Jon Pyke was the Chief Technology Officer and a main board director of Staffware Plc from August 1992 until October 2003. He demonstrates an exceptional blend of Business/People Manager; a Technician with a highly developed sense where technologies fit and how they should be utilized. Jon is a world recognized industry figure; an exceptional public speaker and a seasoned quoted company executive.
Keith Ayers is the President of Integro Leadership Institute LLC, a leadership consulting group based in West Chester, PA. Originally from Australia, Keith joined Integro as a consultant in 1977 and took over the ownership of the organization in 1982. Demand for his programs and expertise in the United States led him to move to Pennsylvania in August 2001. The U.S. division of Integro now has over 60 certified associates across North America.
Terry Schurter is a Director of the nonprofit International Process and Performance Institute, former CEO of Bennu Group, Research Director for Process with Bloor Research and CIO of the BPM Group. An internationally recognized thought leader in Business Process Management, Performance Management, and Customer Expectation Management he received the Global Thought Leadership Award in 2007 from the 20,000+ member BPM Group.
Keith Swenson
PETER FINGAR is an internationally recognized expert on business strategy, globalization and business process management. He's a practitioner with over thirty years of hands-on experience at the intersection of business and technology.
Max. J. Pucher is the Founder and current Chief Architect of ISIS Papyrus Software, an independent software vendor focused on business content (documents?) and process management. Our speciality is to utilize Machine Learning technology to reduce the amount of programming needed to analyze and create content and related processes. Our key concept is that there are no processes without content and content without process is irrelevant. Of course there is documentation and marketing content that is not related to a business process instance, but still needed to perform a certain process. I challenge anyone here to provide me with proof that content and process are not the same. It is not a one-to-one relationship as multiple content may make up a single process or mulitple processes may use the same content. I also claim right here that processes are always in the need of working with inbound and outbound content, except odd processes such as vacation authorization. The need for complex process links disappears when content state controls process progression. I therefore do not see the need for standalone BPM products that only create substantial integration and programming efforts. I propose that businesses need a consolidated approach for ECM, BPM, CRM, as well as business rules and operational business intelligence which Forrester Research calls a DBA or Dynamic Business Application. 
From it’s beginnings in the early 90’s to the boom in the early 00’s – where is BPM at in 2009?
