I caught this very interesting ZDNet Asia article in which Eileen Yu interviews Ovum analyst Steve Hodgkinson on the benefits of Enterprise 2.0. Eileen summarizes Steve's "top five reasons why businesses in Asia should deploy Web 2.0 tools":
- To encourage a culture of information-sharing and collaboration between staff.
- To appeal to the creative energy of social networking behavior in the Net generation, or young tech-savvy "Generation X and Y" employees.
- To provide a forum that spotlights workers who contribute to cross-organization discussions.
- To stimulate innovation and leverage knowledge across the organization.
- To create transparent "corporate memory", or establish dialog of rationale behind important policy and strategy decisions.
I agree with Steve's observations, we have been doing these things at SAP, and the benefits are clear. With regard to some of the risks of web 2.0, many of the items Steve mentions are real; however, there were and still are risks with more mainstream technologies like email and USB sticks. While the security issues will be sorted out - they're certainly not deal breakers! The one comment that Steve made that really struck me was:
Companies that are more closed, or "anti-social" in nature, have legitimate needs to manage their operational risks, and restrict information flows to protect sensitive data, business processes and intellectual property, he noted.
These organizations typically need a higher degree of efficiency and predictability in their business, rather than have tools that enable innovation.
I don't believe that any company has the option of not being innovative nor do I believe that being "anti-social" should at any level be tolerable. Web 2.0 tools have as much a place behind the firewall for business productivity gains as they do outside the firewall for knowledge transfer/sharing. While companies must manage operational risk and protect sensitive data, these needs don't negate the use or the value of Web 2.0 tools.
Is this Enterprise 2.0 Asia Style? I think not - Enterprise 2.0 is global!
Technorati Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Net generation
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