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Company Culture the Biggest Hurdle to Becoming a Social Business

Image courtesy of Moleskin.comTo find out what people actually think about social, cloud enablement technology company, Appirio recently conducted a survey with 300+ international (UK and US) respondents where they  focused on end-users of social and what they think of it. Interesting findings include:

  • People’s bosses uses social tools twice as much as they do
  • Brits are more social at work than people in the US
  • Everyone generally recognizes the potential of social and wants their company to invest more in it
  • People think culture and having an owner for social are more important for success than budget

Mark Fidelman, Forbes, on Appirio’s study:

After surveying over 300 professionals, technology service provider Appirio determined that most people are far more social personally than they are at work.

Interestingly, 41% believe their company should be doing more to become a social enterprise, and twice as many managers are using social media compared to their employees they manage. So the takeaway here seems to be that employees either are not allowed to engage in social networking activities at work, or don’t see the value in it.

Most importantly, as the survey suggests, enterprise workers now understand that culture and ownership of the social business transformation are key factors to the success of a social enterprise.

ZDNet’s Rachel King shares her thoughts on Appirio’s survey as well:

Overall, Appirio’s results indicate that nearly a third of businesses surveyed had no idea what the term “social enterprise” meant.

That doesn’t mean that businesses aren’t on-board with the idea of integrating social media throughout work infrastructures. Researchers found that more than 35 percent of respondents said their companies had set aside budgets or resources to make business processes more social. Furthermore, 57 percent of respondents said they currently use social tools to do their job.

Thus, it’s shouldn’t be surprising that many businesses are hesitant or even reluctant to adopt social media at work. According to Appirio’s survey, 30 percent of respondents admitted a shift in company culture is the biggest hurdle on the way to becoming a social business.

Interestingly, even though Salesforce.com and other proponents of social enterprise who typically advertise collaboration and a boost to productivity as top reasons for implementing social technologies, Appirio’s researchers found the truth behind why businesses are most intrigued by the shift: an impact on sales.

As seen in the graphic below, nearly a third of both employees and managers think that social media could help attract new customers, while collaboration is only the third-best reason behind engaging existing customers.

Social at Work Infographic

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