Social business starts with people

The ways individuals and communities interact, form relationships, make decisions, accomplish work, and purchase goods are changing the way business is done. A social business embraces and cultivates a spirit of collaboration and community – internally and externally – delivering unprecedented return for the time invested.

A social business recognizes that people do business with people and optimizes how people interact to accomplish organizational goals:

• Deeply connecting individuals in productive, efficient ways
• Providing line of sight across traditional boundaries and better aligning actions to needs
• Speeding up business with insight to anticipate and address evolving opportunities

Social business delivers real business value

Becoming a social business requires a long-term, strategic approach to business culture, executive leadership, an effective corporate strategy, and organizational ability to recognize and design for transformation.

Organizations that successfully transform into social businesses are enabled by an optimized workforce, intelligent sales, strengthened operational controls, increased product and service innovation, and deepened customer care and insight.

The results from those already on the journey to becoming a social business show:

• 90% of respondents report measurable business benefits from Web 2.0 tools, including better access to knowledge, lower costs of doing business, and higher revenues (McKinsey Global Survey 2010)
• Standout organizations are 57% more likely to allow their people to use social and collaborative tools (IBM CHRO Study 2010)

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