In one of my recent posts, I spoke about the organisational culture and senior management buy in required to be a truly social company. So you have the budget, you are ready to open up your business to the world and the C-Suite can’t wait to get started, but what barriers remain?
1. Technology
The very thing which enables us to run businesses like never before, cross culturally, across opposite geographies and enables someone like me to manage a virtual team from my living room, can also hold us back from connecting with customers and stakeholders. Why? Because, in a massive organisation adopting new technology isn’t a simple process, from research to conception/implementation of a new piece of software such as a CRM system can take up to 6 months to be deployed. Very often old systems need to be merged with new ones, these then need to be tested and restructured, and following that people need to be trained in how to use it.
2. Skills
Deciding to transform a business can look good on paper. But will the strategically sound decision be as quick to implement in the real word. A business going through a big change will need massive restructure of human resources and often find that existing staff are moulded to old ways of working. Who will be your new social champions? How will you train employees? If you hire in new staff how will existing employees feel? If you are going to be blogging and ‘talking’ on social media do you have the right kind of communicators in your team?
3. Insights and Analytics
Goes with technology. Everyday a new article about why we should be using the latest digital platform. But do you have the data about your target audiences and stakeholders ready to shape and inform your actions? If not then you might be wasting valuable resources and time chasing a cause with no promise of return. Being a data driven organisation is a crucial part of being social.
What have I missed? I know there is more than 3!