Maximizing the business value from social computing

Unisys Disruptive Technology & Trend Point of View
Whitepaper Series - Social Computing
Maximizing the Business Value from Social Computing

Social computing is an important strategic platform for increasing workplace
collaboration and knowledge management, and a strategic platform for modernizing
enterprise applications to connect collaboration with business processes and
transactions, thereby achieving tangible productivity gains and customer value.
Addressing both parts of this equation, in terms of social-enabling “horizontal”
strategic knowledge management functions and “vertical” mission-critical business
applications, is key to success and to unlocking the full potential of social computing
in the enterprise.

Abstract As enterprise-class social computing technology matures, we
anticipate that the adoption of enterprise social computing will
From over 500 million users of Facebook to the power of social
spread and feature-rich platforms will be increasingly used for
computing to bring about democratic change across entire
strategic advantage. We envision a four-phase model for the
nation states, the disruptive nature of social computing within
adoption of social computing in the enterprise starting with
society at large is well-known. Businesses are recognizing
the adoption of point solutions and public domain solutions,
these transformative powers of social computing and are
migration to enterprise-class platforms with a full suite of
becoming compelled to take action themselves or risk losing
functionality, and then to rich integration with enterprise
value and competitiveness. The challenges of globalization,
processes and mission-critical applications. Value will be
coupled with the consumerization of IT effect, demand that
unlocked as organizations integrate these collaborative
organizations rethink their traditional collaborative approaches
platforms with transactional business applications to add
among employees, customers and business partners in order
collaborative workflow capabilities to mission-critical systems
to maximize organizational productivity and innovation. Whilst
in areas such as exception handling and complex problem
social computing is well-understood in the consumer domain,
resolution not addressed within the confines of these core
organizations are still exploring how best to leverage social
systems. Social computing will additionally emerge as a new
computing as a strategic platform for increasing workplace
strategic organizational capability that extends across the
collaboration and knowledge management, and as an enabling
entire enterprise, connecting the workforce, customers and
platform for modernizing enterprise mission-critical applications
partners, helping us better manage organizational knowledge
to connect rich collaboration with business processes and
and providing human-centric collaboration capabilities to
transactions. In addition, businesses need to deliver and be
support mission-critical business processes and functions.
able to measure tangible productivity gains and customer value
We envision two key areas of enterprise opportunity around
from their social computing initiatives while at the same time
social computing in terms of social-enabling “horizontal”
managing inherent risks such as security and privacy.

strategic knowledge management and innovation functions and increase productivity since employees are likely to have
“vertical” mission-critical business applications. The end state constant 24x7 access to these devices and therefore yield
is when social computing becomes ubiquitous across software, greater productivity as they merge their work and home lives
systems and processes. with multi-purpose devices. Organizations have to take action to
embrace this change or risk losing value and competitiveness.
In summary, social computing is an important strategic
The signs are, however, that organizations have a long way to
platform for increasing workplace collaboration and knowledge
go. According to recent Unisys research on Consumerization
management, and a strategic platform for modernizing
of IT conducted in conjunction with IDC , nearly half of all
enterprise applications to connect collaboration with business
information workers surveyed gave their employers low marks
processes and transactions, thereby achieving tangible
for the use of social computing within their enterprise. While the
productivity gains and customer value. There are concrete
research showed a gap in meeting worker expectations, it did
steps organizations can take today in order to address both
reveal significant adoption plans on the part of employers.
parts of the enterprise opportunity around social computing in
terms of “horizontal” strategic knowledge management and
Here are some examples of where the Unisys Research
innovation functions and “vertical” mission-critical business
on Consumerization of IT shows rapid adoption of social
applications. Addressing both parts of this equation is key to
computing in business:
success and to unlocking the full potential of social computing
in the enterprise. • Across the board, enterprises report that they
expect to increase their use of social networking
Market Trends, Challenges and Opportunities tools like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for
Over the last several years, social computing has become one business purposes over the next 12 months
of the most innovative and disruptive trends on the Internet • Business usage of these applications is expected to
and has fundamentally changed how people interact and grow from 10-30 percent in the next year
communicate with one another. This phenomenon, which • Nearly half of all iWorkers surveyed (46 percent)
started as a consumer movement, has turned into a significant gave their employers extremely low marks for
business movement as more and more businesses explore the integration of consumer devices and social
the use of social computing within their organizations to create networks with enterprise applications
business value through engaging with customers, partners, and
employees in new and more efficient and effective ways. The social computing trend is showing clear signs that it will
What sets social computing apart is not only the ease of continue to gain momentum and penetrate into business
creating, aggregating, and disseminating information, but also collaboration. Integration with enterprise applications is one of
its viral networking ability that extends the reach of people and the more interesting directions on the horizon, and could well
content beyond established networks and traditional workplace become the most promising for real business value over the
boundaries. This unique capability allows people to connect long term.
and collaborate in self-organizing networks that tap into the Correspondingly, organizations need to develop an integrated
intellectual capital of a larger ecosystem without significantly strategy to maximize the value from their social computing
increasing the communication overhead. This inherent strength investments and initiatives to address various challenges such
of social computing makes it an exceptional collaboration as security and privacy and to determine how and where to
platform to achieve productivity gains, foster innovation, and gain the best return on investment. Here are just a handful of
increase customer and shareholder value. considerations for CIOs and application owners that need to
Today, many employees have started to use social networks be addressed:
for their workplace collaboration as well as their personal • How to create an end-to-end strategy around social
connections, thereby further fueling the Consumerization computing that takes into account the anticipated evolution
of IT trend in the enterprise; that is practices, devices and of social computing across the enterprise?
applications from the consumer world are finding their
• How to increase organizational innovation and worker
way into the business world. Employee access to powerful
productivity through workplace collaboration and
and feature-rich devices in the consumer world and their
knowledge management?
experiences with social networking can help organizations

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• How to integrate the advanced collaborative capabilities another, but also by replacing traditional business boundaries
of social computing with mission-critical business with unprecedented transparency, collectivism and viral
processes and transactions to maximize business and networking reach.
shareholder value?
Traditionally, knowledge management initiatives have focused
• How to create customer value using social computing? on “brain-drain” document-centric repositories “just-in-case”
• How to take a step-wise approach to implementing an other employees may find them useful. Often documents
end-to-end strategy for social computing across the enterprise? quickly become outdated or are hard to find. The cost of vetting
• How to measure the effectiveness of social computing and refreshing the knowledge repository is simply an overhead
initiatives in terms of return on investment? many organizations find hard to sustain. On the contrary, a
social computing approach to knowledge management can
• How to take advantage of the benefits that social computing
rely upon the organization’s collective intelligence to provide
has to offer without risking the organization’s business
answers and advice “just-in-time”. Social computing is the
continuity, jeopardizing compliance, diminishing brand, or
latest step in the evolution of collaboration. In comparison
exposing sensitive information and intellectual property?
to the technologies of the past, social computing allows
The Future of Enterprise Collaboration us to work on tasks collaboratively, within a shared virtual
In today’s increasingly competitive marketplace, the work-space, and in a continuously connected environment.
collaboration model organizations adopt has a direct impact on By incorporating “social” aspects of knowledge creation and
how efficiently they operate, how effectively they innovate, and sharing, organizations will be able to make existing knowledge
ultimately how fast they grow. Organizations face tremendous repositories more meaningful. Social computing capabilities
challenges in quickly building effective teams with the right can enable automatic and rapid dissemination of content
skills for the tasks that surface across organizational silos to networked individuals or communities of practice using a
and geographical boundaries on a daily basis. With the most “push” model as opposed to traditional “pull”. Moreover, the
valuable enterprise resource of human expertise scattered community may even enrich content with information relevance
across the globe, the most important catalyst for business such as ratings, tags, and comments. Every “social interaction”
success - free and seamless flow of information - is at risk. To that enriches the content has a word-of-mouth effect which
be successful, organizations need to tap into expert opinion offers a continuous learning opportunity for all interested in the
effectively and in a timely manner, and provide the right subject. More interestingly, when employees choose to follow
environment for knowledge to disseminate easily and efficiently, “subjects” in addition to following people, they will get more
and to foster innovation and growth. relevant content. As information relevance increases, employee
engagement increases proportionally. Most remarkably, social
Next Generation Knowledge Management computing enables communities to self-organize and scale
and Collaboration without incremental coordination overhead.
Today, social computing presents a rare opportunity for solving
Since social computing offers transparent and viral information
the business challenges around collaboration by re-defining not
creation and dissemination, organizations will find the
only how people create, share information, and work with one
need to establish relevant communities of practice to allow
Enterprise Social Computing Application Scenarios

E-Commerce
Vertical
Solutions Case
Customer Exception
Management
Communities Handling
Customer
Horizontal Ideation & Innovation Support
Solutions Strategic Workplace Management
Collaboration

Next Generation Knowledge Extended Strategic Social Enabling Mission
Management & Collaboration Collaboration Critical Applications

Figure 1 – Enterprise Social Computing Application Scenarios

3

people to self-organize and better filter and process all of any successful social computing strategy in order to
the knowledge they create. Organizations should consider retain and advance critical business expertise. In addition
social computing empowered communities of practice an to community-based collaboration, your social computing
attractive option for scenarios such as rapidly on-boarding new strategy should also aim to improve communication and
employees, strengthening mentoring programs, and creating coordination at other levels ranging from small working teams
communities around specialty areas of expertise vital to to organization-wide. By way of example, in a team-based
organizational effectiveness. While doing this, organizations scenario, such as a distributed sales team or project delivery
should take the necessary steps to mitigate potential risks team, team members can leverage a social computing
such as unauthorized access to sensitive information, issues approach to share updates, weekly accomplishments, clarify
surrounding legal compliance, and competitive intellectual concerns, or make informed, collective decisions, thereby
property leaks. Exposure to such risks can be avoided by a cutting down time required for status reporting or unproductive
combination of implementing effective policies and procedures meetings. In a company-wide scenario, a social computing
and also by securing the sensitive material and limiting access approach to innovation management may allow rapid and easy
to it. When dealing with public social media, organizations creation, dissemination, and vetting of ideas as a collaborative
should also consider active monitoring and response front-end funnel for your overall innovation program. The ability
capabilities to protect the brand and organizational reputation. to cross-pollinate ideas by reaching a broad employee base
with diverse perspectives can lead to greater input into your
Overall agility of organizational learning is a vital competitive
innovation pipeline early on in the process and ultimately higher
differentiator. Connecting the right sub-sets of subject
rates of innovation downstream.
matter experts into relevant communities is a key part

Case-In-Point: Modernizing a Case Management Application to Achieve Productivity Gains
A case management application for providing welfare efficiently. Social computing will capture these human-centric
benefits is designed to automate a structured business interactions making them a part of the recorded case
workflow. However, quite frequently, manual interventions history and facilitating tacit knowledge management. The
are required to resolve exceptions or complex cases that information can be tagged for relevance and can then be
often delay the overall case processing time. This is a good easily discovered by other case workers to improve overall
example of how this kind of case management application organizational productivity.
can be improved with social computing capabilities giving
case workers the ability to more effectively collaborate
and resolve exceptions and complex cases within the
business context.
With social computing tools, a case worker can locate
experts and collaborate with individuals who may be
outside of their established networks. The virally-networked,
crowd-sourced approach offers the case worker multiple
opinions on how best to address unique exceptions.
Information from the case can be automatically added to
the social collaboration streams as needed thereby giving Systems Integration Platform
experts the case context and allowing them to collaborate
to resolve the issues more effectively. This contextual
collaboration leads to faster resolution and an increase in
overall productivity.
A case worker can also follow a case and be alerted if
there is new development in the case. This allows the case
worker to manage multiple cases more effectively and Figure 2 – Modernizing a Case Management Application with
Social Computing

4

In order to embark on a social computing-enabled collaboration Because social computing mirrors the natural way we
and knowledge management strategy, there are three key interact in real life, it achieves business efficiency with little
phases. The first phase is to familiarize employees with the communication overhead and without complex organizational
rich capabilities of social computing by encouraging them changes or new bureaucratic methods. It can therefore
to establish personal profile pages and to start networking provide the missing business context that allows people to
with colleagues across the company using features such collaborate more effectively in scenarios such as resolving
as micro-blogs. Secondly, employees need to be offered business workflow exceptions that requires human judgment
collaboration spaces or communities of interest that can and expertise or orchestrating transactions that take place in
enhance their everyday business processes and work complex collaborative environments. In this end-state, social
initiatives while simultaneously growing their network to a computing has successfully synthesized social behavior and
critical mass. Finally, once employees have gained efficiencies computational systems - creating a powerful collaborative
in their day-to-day communications and have become fluent workflow capability that extends transactional, mission-critical
in terms of participating within social-enabled communities of systems to provide real bottom-line benefits.
practice, the final step is to introduce social-enabled features
As enterprise-class social computing technology matures, we
into broader, more strategic, corporate-wide communities
anticipate that the adoption of enterprise social computing
such as innovation management.
will spread and these platforms will be increasingly used for
strategic advantage. Value will be unlocked as organizations
Social-Enabling Mission-Critical integrate these collaborative platforms with transactional
Enterprise Applications business applications to add collaborative workflow capabilities
The potential of social computing is not limited to strategic to mission-critical systems. Social computing will emerge as a
“horizontal” knowledge management or idea management new strategic organizational capability that extends across the
capabilities as explained above. It is important to understand entire enterprise, connecting the workforce, customers and
that in the business environment collaboration is most partners, helping us better manage organizational knowledge
effective when it is in direct relation with the core business and providing human-centric collaboration capabilities to support
and applied in “vertical” industry and process scenarios as mission-critical business processes and functions. The challenge
well (figure 1). Therefore, a social computing strategy that as always with transactional systems is to ensure that access
does not incorporate the business value-chain and provide to information is secured. For private social networks, this
direct support for business transactions and processes is can be achieved by leveraging existing system authentication
destined to fall short of expectations and address only a and authorization capabilities to govern who can access what
subset of its potential. data. For public facing social networks, it can be achieved by
Despite the fact that over the last several decades, most web-based security features including authentication, encryption,
business transactions are fully automated with straight-through and access control technologies. As always these measures
systems, often termed “lights-out processing”, there are still need to be supported by tight governance, adequate corporate
many processes in organizations which rely on human judgment policies, and comprehensive end-user training.
and expert opinion. These processes are usually critical and Social-enabling mission-critical enterprise applications is
customer-centric, but tend to be costly for organizations. a multi-step process. Just like any enterprise initiative,
Although people can intuitively respond to these types of organizations should start by defining their business goals and
processes with unmatched effectiveness, efforts to build high-level social collaboration strategy. From an implementation
this capability into business applications have so far failed. perspective, the first step is to conduct an assessment of
Traditional IT applications are strong at addressing well-defined, your enterprise application portfolio to identify those business
policy-based processes, but fall short of automating more applications that may benefit the most from social-enablement.
human-centric, arbitrary ones such as exceptions. We expect Candidate applications typically include those that require some
that social computing will reach its full potential when it is used manual processes among multiple workers, those that require
to seamlessly support these collaborative business workflows frequent collaboration among many information users, and
tied to enterprise applications and processes. applications that involve case management, exception handling,
problem resolution or customer service.

5

Secondly, since collaboration is a cross-cutting concern, a Enterprise Application Scenarios for Social Computing
common social computing platform needs to be selected and
Enhancing a Case Management Application to
adopted which will provide the common functionality required
Improve Efficiency
across all business units and which will provide strong integration
Today, case management systems are
capabilities with existing applications through open standards.
indispensible in most organizations, coordinating procedural
Thirdly, start with the low-hanging fruit that will provide your activities that surround many complex business operations.
users a quick benefit with minimum investment and unlock the Most of these workflow-oriented activities require close
potential of this new capability. For example, in most cases collaboration of case workers who need to perform ad-hoc
relatively simple integration can be achieved at the presentation activities outside of the rigidly structured systems. When
layer that delivers a quick return on investment but introduces integrated with enterprise social computing solutions, case
significant business benefits to the end user community. As management systems can provide enhanced support for
organizations learn more about this new paradigm, and adopt these unstructured, yet critical human workflows.
it in their daily workflow, you will want to implement tighter
Modernizing an E-Commerce Application to Add
integration with your business applications at the process and
Customer Value
the data layers that will yield even more contextual relevance
By integrating e-commerce applications with social
and productivity gains.
computing platforms, organizations can enhance customer
The Adoption of Social Computing value by having these applications monitor and recommend
in the Enterprise high-relevance products based on customer conversations, like
and dislike preferences and collaboration patterns, in addition to
The shift to the integrated enterprise collaboration platform will purchase history, and therefore better address customer needs.
not be immediate or easy. It will be an evolutionary journey as
organizations explore the use of social computing in portals Improving Exception Handling Processes to Cut Costs
and eventually within business applications (figure 1). We and Improve Customer Relations
anticipate that social computing adoption in the enterprise Exception handling, which often requires expert human
will have four major phases: 1) Initially organizations will intervention and close collaboration among multiple workers
experiment with point solutions with discrete slices of social and business units, is a costly process that distracts valuable
computing functionality. 2) As they gain experience, they will resources from core operations. Empowered by enterprise social
move to enterprise-class platforms integrating a broader set computing solutions, problem solvers can connect, collaborate,
of social computing functionality with existing “horizontal” and innovate solutions rapidly, tapping into experts and
content repositories and community-based portals. 3) At the knowledge bases with greater ease and efficiency.
next level, organizations will start to realize greater value can Providing a Strategic Workplace Platform to Increase
be achieved by integrating these advanced social collaboration Knowledge Worker Productivity
platforms with “vertical” enterprise applications and processes. In today’s global and virtual workplace a better platform
Lastly, 4) Enterprise collaboration will emerge as a pervasive is required to maximize knowledge worker effectiveness and
and embedded capability across the organization. Each phase interactions. Enterprise social networking platforms can deliver
will yield increasing business value as adaptation of social this much needed new capability for richer enterprise workflow
computing becomes more pervasive across the enterprise and thus increasing organizational efficiency.
is integrated into more mission-critical business applications
Managing Innovation by Tapping into the Wisdom of
and processes. (For more on our vision of social computing
the Crowds
adoption, please see the Unisys whitepaper, The Adoption of
A social computing-enabled approach to
Social Computing in the Enterprise2)
innovation management can allow rapid and easy creation,
dissemination, and vetting of ideas as a collaborative front-end
funnel for corporate innovation programs and can foster the
principles of “open innovation” whereby ideas can be gathered
from beyond the four walls of the organization.

6

Technology Adaptation Life Cycle for Social Computing

Pervasive &
Transformational embedded
capabilities
Integrated with enterprise
High applications & Processes

Business
Enterprise-class platforms
impact Moderate

Low Off-the-shelf & point solu-
tions

Phase I Phase II Phase III Phase IV
2000+ 2005+ 2010+ 2013+

Figure 3 – Technology Adaptation Life Cycle for Social Computing3

Social computing will be a powerful enabler for introducing social computing in the enterprise. Resist the temptation
advanced collaboration capabilities into legacy business of implementing a point solution to address a tactical need
applications. Coupled with mobile computing, social computing without taking into account how people, processes and
software will be used to modernize legacy applications applications will be affected holistically.
“in-place”, leveraging existing investments and achieving better
Integrate social computing for strategic knowledge
return on investment than risky “rip-and-replace” techniques.
management, collaboration and innovation – Develop
A key requirement for success is that any social-enabled
social computing as a strategic horizontal capability which is
business application must provide collaboration capabilities in
available across organizations and applications, connecting
the “context” of the business transactions to support business
all information resources and users in a consistent and
processes such as exception management. (For more on
effective way. Leverage the social computing platform as the
our vision of advanced modernization using next-generation
enterprise collaboration hub for knowledge management,
technology enablers, please see the Unisys whitepaper,
collaboration and innovation by integrating it with existing
Modernization Beyond SOA4).
knowledge and content management systems and other
Summary & Recommendations office collaboration capabilities.

Despite the vast benefits, business gains from social Integrate social computing into mission-critical enterprise
computing cannot be presumed by default. There are a number applications and processes – Real bottom-line business
of key success factors that organizations have to consider and value can be realized when social computing is integrated
plan accordingly to maximize business benefits, to achieve their with enterprise applications and processes. Make social
goals, and to maximize their return on investment. collaboration capabilities inherently available as part of
business applications, especially those that require human
Define a strategic vision for enterprise collaboration –
intervention for transaction processing and exception handling,
Enterprise collaboration is a foundational and strategic
or can benefit from collaborative human workflows. Look
organizational capability upon which the business is built.
across the full enterprise application portfolio, from “horizontal”
Creating an effective collaboration platform goes beyond
applications to “vertical” industry applications, for candidates
implementing a point solution or providing an online portal.
that can best leverage contextual collaboration in structured
An overarching enterprise collaboration and social computing
business processes and transactions.
plan needs to be developed in support of corporate strategy
and vision, taking into account the anticipated evolution of

7

Collaboration is more than the use of technology; it has to and revert to the traditional methods given their comfort level
be a culturally accepted business practice – Create a cultural or not seeing its value over traditional methods. The success
environment that makes social collaboration rewarding and of social computing lies in making it a seamless part of daily
engaging. Since social computing is about transparency, business workflow. Education, ease-of-use and seamless
authenticity, and networked approach to collaboration, integration to daily business processes and applications are
organizations need to reinforce positive behavior and capitalize key to success.
on the human social behavior. Since business value derives
Build success measures into your social computing initiatives
from individual participation and contributions, organizations
– Align measures and metrics to business goals. Return on
need to provide enough leeway for individuals to figure out
investment should be clearly identifiable and measurable
how they can add value in their own way. An open environment
within your initiatives to social-enable “horizontal” knowledge
that allows for experimentation will be necessary to create
management functions and “vertical” mission-critical business
the right environment for employees to feel comfortable about
applications. For example, if the objective is to improve
collaborating via social computing.
exception handling within a critical business process or
Develop an integrated capability to avoid another transaction, then a success metric might be shorter cycle times
technology silo – Keep in mind that the end goal is delivering for problem resolution.
an integrated business capability. Develop integrated
In summary, social computing is an important strategic
capabilities, not isolated islands of tools. Integrate core
platform for increasing workplace collaboration and knowledge
social capabilities with enterprise resources. Specifically,
management, and a strategic platform for modernizing
core information like user profiles and communities should
enterprise applications to connect collaboration with business
be centralized and integrated with existing corporate identity
processes and transactions, thereby achieving tangible
management and directory systems.
productivity gains and customer value. Addressing both parts of
Mitigate security, privacy and compliance risk - Like most other this equation, in terms of social-enabling “horizontal” strategic
recent disruptive trends, social computing is a step towards a knowledge management functions and “vertical” mission-critical
more decentralized and open workplace which may introduce business applications, is key to success and to unlocking the
founded or un-founded security concerns such as a loss of full potential of social computing in the enterprise.
control, a source of distraction for employees, and a threat
against intellectual property. One of the major concerns for
References
the enterprise is the danger of allowing unauthorized access 1
Unisys Consumerization of IT Benchmark Study – Summary
to confidential information. These concerns can be mitigated Survey Results, June 2010, http://www.unisys.com/unisys/ri/
by a combination of technology and policy solutions such as pub/bl/detail.jsp?id=1120000970004010071
developing effective use policies, limiting access to critical 2
“The Adoption of Social Computing in the Enterprise”, Unisys
information sources, implementing strong governance,
Whitepaper, June 2010, http://www.unisys.com/unisys/ri/wp/
implementing media monitoring solutions, and delivering
detail.jsp?id=1120000970004210099&pid=&sid=4100008
formal user training to increase awareness for risk and to
ensure compliance.
3
Ditto

Make social computing an intrinsic and integrated part of the
4
“Modernization Beyond SOA”, Unisys Whitepaper, April
workplace experience – Employee adoption is likely to be the 2010, http://www.unisys.com/unisys/ri/wp/detail.
biggest challenge. While many employees welcome the intuitive jsp?id=1120000970002410122
social interface to connect and collaborate, some may resist

For more information, contact your Unisys representative or visit www.unisys.com
©2011 Unisys Corporation. All rights reserved.

Unisys and the Unisys logo are registered trademarks of Unisys Corporation. All other brands and products
referenced herein are acknowledged to be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

Printed in the United States of America 05/11 11-0039

Maximizing the business value from social computing

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