In a new study commissioned by SAP SE and done by IDC, Harness the Value of Collaboration: What is the business value of social solutions in your organization, it was estimated that firms around the globe could lose as much as $30,000 per employee per year due to inefficiency. The study also found that social collaboration technology might be the silver bullet in fighting off these lost revenues and making all employees that much more efficient. In particular, the study found that enabling workers to share information in real-time actually drives measurable business results that will knock out of otherwise compensate for this loss.
The report says that among the reasons companies are losing so much money is because everyday tasks, such as reading and responding to emails regarding projects multiple people are working on, as well as searching for information gathered by others drags down the basic efficiency of the entire work place. This is where social collaboration tools such as SAP’s JAM platform can come in handy.
The platform already has more than 17.5 million subscribers and users are able to make more informed, faster decisions while also improving the very quality of their work. Vanessa Thompson, research director, Enterprise Social Networks and Collaborative Technologies, for industry analyst IDC Research recently talked about the need for social collaboration tools in a recent release. "The ability to link employees, partners, suppliers and customers together in order to deliver right time information and context to interactions is at the epicenter of competitive differentiation.” she said.
The SAP study found a number of specific ways in which programs like JAM can come in handy for a lines-of-business social collaboration in the following ways:
Commenting on the findings Sameer Patel, senior vice president and general manager, Products and GTM Enterprise Collaboration and Social Software, SAP noted: "These last three years of fast growth and meaningful adoption of SAP Jam has proven without any doubt that building highly connected networks of employees, partners and customers can drive business performance…Executives at many of the world's leading organizations are now leveraging social collaboration technology to drive growth, improve customer satisfaction and reduce cost."
While it may seem obvious, given the omni-channel interactions world that is emerging, that social media is playing an increasingly important role in enhancing customer experiences, as the study found, the benefits to enterprises of social media are not just about customer interactions but are about improving operational excellence as well, and contact centers are at the heart of leveraging the information generation by social media.