Innovation within an Organisation through Commercially Developed Social Network Service - Coursework Example

An analysis of the exploitation of innovation within an organisation through commercially developed Social Network Service. The assignment requires an analysis of a recent IBM initiative relating to ‘Social Business’ Table of Contents Introduction 3 Exploitation of IBM’s ‘Knowledge’ Leading to Enhanced ‘Innovation’ 4 Learning Approach Used By IBM 4 Social Business Development 7 Knowledge Management Features 10 Issues for an Organisation on Becoming a Social Business 11 Current and Future Potential in Social Media Exploitation 11 Social Media Service Achieved Through Knowledge and Innovation Frameworks 12 Conclusion 13 13 References 14 Introduction The world of business has changed significantly in its way of interaction with the people. It has become more instrumented, interrelated as well as intelligent with the implementation of the social computing with the advent of the social business. As the use of internet brought about a change in the global market, in the same way the social networking will make the world witness a shift in the paradigm of the business environment. Any business organisation which has the ability to alter into the social business will have the potential to generate more revenue which will assists in maintaining a strong relation with the customers. Moreover, this transformation into the social business, the organisation will have the potential to increase its efficiency in the operations as well as in managing and optimising the employees. Beside the social business concepts are linked with the ‘people to people’ (P2P) relationship wherein every department uses the social media effectively to complete the tasks. This implies that any business using the social networking device will have the ability to communicate with the individuals effectively both within and outside the organisation which acts as the “social business” (IBM Corporation, 2011). IBM in the present scenario is taking into consideration the incorporation of the social networking technologies; this in terms of the IBM is known as the Social Business. This advanced approach have shift the attention of IBM from static content to the source of energy, innovation helping in formulating decision for the prosperity of the business. This enhanced approach has made people more informative by providing information with added value. The IBM no longer follows the Business to Business (B2B) or Business to Customer (B2C) but now incorporates the P2P approach to create a spirit of association within the organisation (1IBM, 2014). Exploitation of IBM’s ‘Knowledge’ Leading to Enhanced ‘Innovation’ Learning Approach Used By IBM The vision of the IBM is to integrate the technologies in order to enhance the future of education to build a smarter method of offering learning along with the IT services to the educational community. The objective of creating education for a smarter planet is to eradicate the barriers regarding the time as well as space for the students of various age groups (Rudd & et.al., 2009). The IBM Smarter Educational Framework is the learning approach used in order to maximise and explore the opportunities in the United Kingdom. This learning framework will help in to bring revolution in the educational establishments for the U.K. The IBM is of the thought process that in order to improve the education of a country it is not necessary to ‘work hard but is to work better’ with the help of the advanced innovative technology. It was observed that the educational sector faced various challenges wherein the institutions were being pressurised to perform better and deliver high quality education to the students. The issue faced was the increasing cost of the resources and the reduction in the budgets. The UK requires various modes of learning, improved teaching services in order to increase the social mobility. IBM identified these issues of the educational sector and the increasing demand of the country regarding the innovation in the education sector. Hence, IBM came up with the innovative idea which is coined as ‘IBM Smarter Educational Framework’ to enhance the process of learning. The framework includes the three components ‘Research Storage Excellence, Exceptional Student Experience and Institutional Optimisation’. The motive of the framework is to create a relationship and enhance the effectiveness and productivity of the education for the benefit the people. Smarter Education initiates sustainable improvement of the performance by providing better decisions, understanding the problems and resolving it proactively, and organise resources to function effectively (1IBM Corporation, 2012). This endeavour of the IBM has helped the universities and the colleges to increase the number of admission, level of satisfaction of the students with the reduced cost (2IBM, 2014). Moreover, interactive smarter classes have been formed with in the universities to involve smarter transformation. Research Storage Excellence: The IBM realised the issues faced by the research community which was the retention of the data for a long term as well as inadequate treatment of the data that provide competitive advantage. The IBM framework of the research storage excellence involves an extensible constituent, which incorporates to offer solution that manage as well as exploit the data of research from every source (5IBM, 2014). Moreover, IBM has created tool which adds value to research output from the data curation to the data mining in order to maximise the rate of success in the future. Figure 1: Research storage Excellence (3IBM Corporation, 2012) Institutional Optimisation: The institutional optimisation was the main focus of IBM for the year 2012. The optimisation was possible by implementation of the accessible structure and the cloud foundation. IBM was of the opinion that to enhance the efficiency of the operations a blended approach in the delivering of the services is required. IBM through the use of the middleware along with the service portfolio has built an environment needed by the clients to assist them to get transformed due to the advent of the framework. This has supported the transformation in order to enhance the quality of the education (6IBM, 2014). Figure 2: Institutional Optimisation (3IBM Corporation, 2012) Exceptional Student Experience: The IBM has its efficiency in the field of technology and hence they have an in depth knowledge regarding the innovation of the technologies that can be implemented to bring the change in the life of the students in the field of education. By combining the data of the students in the system various understandings can be gathered at a rapid pace and hence the intervention plan can be developed. This technological advancement in the field of education has encouraged the establishments to be interconnected and be intelligent when connecting with the students. This will potentially help IBM to provide a complete view regarding a student with the help of the advanced personalised learning experience (7IBM, 2014). Figure 3: Exceptional Student Experience (3IBM Corporation, 2012) Social Business Development With the advent of the social business the organisations have created various opportunities for transformation. The development of the social media has given rise to exceptional experience in the field of technology and innovation. The social business has distinct features which include engaged, transparent and nimble. Social businesses help in connecting the people and partners through a network to create innovation and business opportunity. The engagement within the network is further expected to create a foundation of trust and the motivation to share the information to increase the efficiency of the business. These engagement acts as an analytical tool to solve the challenges faced by the business (4IBM, 2014; Cortaid & Kirsten, 2012). Additionally, social business creates transparency which helps to remove the barriers within the organisation and the market place. This helps in judging the mood and understanding of the people to increase the efficiency level. Nimble being a social business provides leverage to speedup the social networking business for making quick and better decision (4IBM Corporation, 2012.). It is observed that the IBM with the help of the social business along with social network delivers benefits to the business. IBM social business accelerates the business velocity and helps in building innovation which helps in the development of a better decision making process. The social media acts a new form of marketing media which encourages interaction between the customers creating new insights. The development of the social business directs for the changing environment pertaining to the work force. The IBM implements ‘Social Business Framework’ which is designed in the form of a modular and open set of competences that assist in accelerating the progress of the socially-enabled solutions. The framework is used to assist the IBM customers to pervade social capabilities in their business process. It is used to facilitate the customer of the IBM to benefit from the opportunities that are derived from the investment in expertise and the technologies. The social business in IBM has helped in strengthening the workforce and offering greater customer experience with value added features. The social business development helped in integrating the customer (2IBM Corporation, 2012). The social business development has built a new arena with the IBM Connections which helped in securing the social software platform. The IBM social content management helped in sharing idea and access the data with the use of the social tools. It is observed that the IBM Social Business Framework also helps in attaining a powerful solution to the various issues (Pager & Graff, 2011; 4IBM Corporation, 2012.). The figure below exhibits the framework for the social business in IBM. Figure 4: Social Business Framework (2IBM Corporation, 2012) It is to be noted that with the worldwide explosion regarding the use of the social media, every business is getting pressurised to meet their customers need. The companies can deliver better experience by exploiting the potential of the social media by designing the practices which delivers value of tangible nature in return of the customer attention, time and also data. The Social CRM strategy is developed in place of the social media as companies have realised instead of customer management, the role of the companies should be to deliver value to the customer. The IBM has implemented the Social CRM in order to mitigate the issues related to the customer services and sales to offer value. The CRM can be further implied for the process of innovation delivering strong customer value through the social networking management to increase customer engagement (3IBM, 2014; IBM Corporation, 2013; Baird & Paresis, 2011). Moreover, for the social business to develop globally in the year 2000, IBM developer Works was introduced to the IBM global Developer Community. This was implemented to deliver knowledge regarding the IBM products and the technologies. Moreover, the IBM initiated ‘My developer Works’ as a social networking component in the developer work site. It was created to assist the developers to interconnect as well as collaborate on the projects. The My Developer works have created an innovative feature wherein various companies and the partners come in the same forum to provide different deals for the customer. Moreover, with the blogger policy and the blogs the IBM Collaboration Solutions Social Software community puts together the knowledge of the products along with the experience from the bloggers (Traudt & Vancil, 2011). Knowledge Management Features The knowledge management is an important concept which is used to effectively manage the knowledge of the organisation by sharing the relevant information which assists in the creation of the knowledge. This knowledge is exploited for the benefit of the organisation and the market. The KM is of significance as the success of any company largely rest on their customers. Knowledge management is the method through which business can form value for its customer through the service deliverance. It helps in connecting and using intellectual capital in order to gain competitive benefit towards the customers’ effectiveness that helps in quick decision making. KM is termed as a ‘cross-disciplinary domain’ (Bhattacharya & Chaudhury, 2004). IBM has claimed that the value for the company focuses on the intangible assets and the KM captures these assets to increase the competitiveness and potential to build value for the company. IBM has created Knowledge Management infrastructure wherein the people, places and things are the recognised as major components. IBM states that people are the main focus point of the KM. People create a strong insights and proficiency to the procedure of the business. Place is the location where the knowledge can be created and the action will be taken into account. Things are important to help the people and place to create strong business efficiency by achieving the goals. These components are of great importance for the benefit of IBM and its services to the customer with the help of technology. To serve the requirement of the business IBM offers a various tools such as IBM Enterprise Information Portal (EIP) and IBM Web sphere Portal Server (WPS) to get better benefit from KM (Lotus Development Corporation, 2000). IBM is a capital intensive company and hence KM acts as major part in its activity. The key features of the KM in the IBM involves the application of the process of asset management which helps in identifying and harden the asset structure in order to provide high potential in solving the customer needs. IBM also commenced programmes in order to increase the involvement of the users. The other feature is the implementation of the ‘competency network’ to successfully use the intellectual capital (Ahmed & et.al., 2012). Issues for an Organisation on Becoming a Social Business The issues that are faced by the companies while becoming a social business is the adoption challenges. Moreover the concept of Social business is still unclear for various businesses. The key issue faced by the business is there understanding to what is the opportunity created by such concept. The basic issue faced by the business is to make the people to participate in the process for the success of the company. The reason is the social business concept requires the people to be educated and hence require training. The social business concept is not clear with the people as they are not able to evaluate the marketing strategy involved with the social program. The basic fear of the people of losing the jobs and for companies the issue is the loosing of the efficient worker due to the change. Different opinion regarding the concept such as the increase of the role of media, continuous monitoring are the reasons. Also the fear of being pressurised is another significant issue regarding the social business implementation (Hetherington, 2012). Current and Future Potential in Social Media Exploitation Social media has showcased its potentiality in the global environment. Social media is a significant vehicle in the order to pursue business growth if it is used effectively. On the other hand, the use of the social media in a negative manner can affect the business in large. Lack of the attention or monitoring might cause various risks in regards to the social media exploitation. The style of marketing has changed wherein with the help of the social media the customers can provide a negative review regarding the services which creates a negative impact on the company. The privacy policies of the company can be insecure if the social media is not used properly and thus may result in posing threat on the company. Due to the social media people can enter any site and can track the statement of the company which may increase the risk exposure for the company. In addition, through the social media there is a high chance to have an accidental release of the company information which might affect the business tremendously (Prisk, n.d.). Social Media Service Achieved Through Knowledge and Innovation Frameworks The need for social media is increasing in the recent years. The popularity of the social media throughout the world is growing with the use of the social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter and Linkedin. These networking sites provides free access for the people making them more interactive through the internet, wherein people from different culture can share their knowledge with each other. The social media because of its use is acts as an important source of advertising for the generation of the revenue for the business. It acts as a medium of entertainment, education and services for the people (Jia, 2010). The social media has its importance during the time of contingencies where it acts as a source of help for the people to convey their issues to the other people of the world. Not only that social media acts as a tool of marketing for the business to promote their services and sometimes it is used to educate people for the benefit of the society. The extent of innovation bought by the social media is exhibited through the IBM as they have implemented strategy for the upliftment of the education system using the social media concept. Moreover, the innovation framework through the use of social media has helped in the development of the business models which have further assisted in gaining profit (Hu, 2011). Conclusion Social networking plays an important role in the modern scenario. IBM has used the social networking technique in order to provide service to the people in the UK. This networking is used by the IBM in order to create relationship among the customer and the business. Moreover, innovation is the key aspect of the social networking approach implemented by the IBM. Smarter Educational Framework was formed by the IBM to support the learning aspect of the organisation. KM is another vital aspect of the social media usage. Thus, the Social business has contributed the business organisation to attain profit and success. 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