Online Social Entrepreneurship - Allied Suffolk Professionals - Case Study Example

Online Social Entrepreneurship Social media has been growing explosively in the last few years and was fuelled by combining great internet access as well as smart mobile devices, and advert-funded business models. Social media is different from traditional forms of media and social interaction in a number of important ways. However, as much as social media has been useful to commercial firms and social enterprises, they need to manage on how they use their social platforms. Introduction The paper explores the similarities and difference between the use of social media by commercial firms and that by social enterprises or charities. Specifically, the paper should carry out a case study analysis of two organisations (one a commercial firm, the other a social enterprise or charity) using a theoretical framework or model of your choice. In addition, the paper is structured into seven parts that include the abstract, introduction; literature review, research methods, analysis, and discussion of findings, conclusions and recommendations as well as the reference part. One commercial firm as well as social enterprise would be analysed. The Allied Suffolk Professionals is a health social enterprise that provides high-quality accessible health care at the hour of need to assist people to return to optimal health and live healthily. Allied Health Professionals Suffolk provides specialist skeletal physiotherapy, neck and back services to a large area of East Anglia. Sainsburys is a commercial firm and the third largest chain of supermarkets in the UK. It was founded in the year 1869 with a shop in London, and the company became the largest grocery retailer. Literature Review Companies mostly analyze the commercial potential of brand technologies by ways of such techniques as PESTEL and Scenario analyzes (Ho and Chen 2009; Lynch, 2009), as well as the Delphi technique. The main objectives of most of such techniques is acquiring overview of the market in terms of the potential competitors and overall size, but they cannot specifically analyze on how the brand technology would affect the commercial firm/ organisation as well as social enterprise internally. Although most organisation has successful business models, they always stumble when they are faced with the mushrooming of new technologies (Chesbrough, 2007: Pfitzer, Bockstette, & Stamp, 2013). Commercial firms and social enterprises apply diverse approaches in analyzing the potential effects of new technologies. PESTEL and Scenario analyzes, for instance, are two analytical approaches that an organisation mostly applies. Scenario analysis is applied for a generic analysis of probably strategic thinking and future environments on possible consequences of a contextual uncertainty (Ho and Chen, 2009; Lynch, 2009). PESTEL analysis is a specified checklist on economic, political, socio-cultural, environmental, technological, and legal aspects. One approach, which can be applied for diverse purposes, from predicting trends in technology and science to making decision in different scenarios (Rowe and Wright, 1999), is the Delphi technique that applies the questionnaires to gather opinions from a group of experts and derive a consensus (Christensen, 1997). Furthermore, commercial firms and social enterprises can analyse the potential threat of brand technologies in the market; they occasionally take this chance to renew themselves more fundamentally. Cognitive aspects are useful in explaining as to why organisations fail to change (Huff et al., 2001). Research Methods PESTLE is a term that P means Political, E stands for Economic, S is Social, T stands for Technological, L is for Legal and E means for Environmental. It provides an insight analysis and view of the entire environment from diverse angles that an individual need to keep a track and check while attempting to contemplate on a given idea or plan (Lubin&Esty, 2010: Teece, 2010). However, this framework has been altered, as marketing gurus added other things like an E for Ethics in order to incorporate demographic element while utilizing the framework as well as researching the market (Cavalcante, Kesting, & Ulhoi, 2011. There are given questions that someone is required to ask when conducting this kind of analysis. They are: • What is the situation of the politics of the nation and can it influence or affect the industry? • What are the prevalent economic factors? • How much significance does culture have in the market? • What technology and innovations are most likely to come and affect the structure of the market? • Are there recent legislations that are regulating the industry or sector? All the aspects of this kind of technique are important for any commercial firm and social enterprise. Furthermore, more than analyzing and comprehending the market, this framework is representing one of the backbone vertebras of management strategies that can define what a commercial firm and social enterprise should do (MacInnes, 2005: Morris, Richardson, & Allen, 2006). However, it can be so, that the significance of every of the factors can be different for diverse commercial firms and social enterprises, but it is imperative to any strategy a commercial firm needs to develop in that they conduct the PESTLE analysis as it is forming a much deeper comprehensive form of the SWOT analysis (Rowe & Wright, 1999: Shafer, Smith, & Linder, 2005). It is very crucial for anyone to comprehend the complete depth of every letter of the PESTLE. It is as below: Political: These factors are determining the extent at which a government can influence the economic sector or a given commercial firms. For instance, a government can impose a new tax due to which whole revenue is generating structures of commercial firms, or social enterprise can change. The factors include fiscal policies, tax policies, and trade tariffs that a government can levy around the fiscal year, and this can affect the environment of a business largely. Economic: These factors determine economic performance, which affects directly a commercial firms as well as having long-term effects. For instance, a rise in the rate of inflation of any economy can affect the way commercial firms and social enterprises price their services and products. In addition, it affects the purchasing power of any consumer as well as changing demand and supply models for that economy. Social: These factors analyzes and critically scrutinize the social environment of a given market as well as gauging determinants, for instance, population analytics demographics, cultural trends, and demographics. A good example can be purchasing trends for countries like the United States where the demand is high during the Holidays. It would enable the commercial firms to gauge their clients’ and customers demographics that use the social media and their cultural trends as well (Pentland & Feldman, 2005). Technological: These factors involve innovations regarding technology that can affect the operations of the commercial firms and social enterprises in the market unfavourably and favourably. Legal: This involves factors that are both internal as well as external. There are given laws that are affecting the environment of a business environment in certain nations while there are given policies that commercial firms and social enterprises are maintaining for themselves. However, the legal analyzes take into consideration both of these angles and furthermore, chart the way forward and strategies in light of such legislations. Environmental: These factors are all that can influence or even determined by the entire surrounding environment. However, this aspect of the PESTLE framework is important for a given commercial firms for instance tourism. Factors of environmental business analysis involve weather, climate, geographical location, environmental offsets, and global changes in climate. The aim of the empirical investigation in this study was to explore the similarities and differences between the use of social media by commercial firms and that by social enterprises. Reviewing of secondary sources was the primary sources of data, with documents such as books and journal articles. Analysis Social media has tremendously grown in the last few years, being fuelled by both a combination of greater access to internet, as well as smart mobile devices, and advert-funded business models. Social media is different from traditional forms of media and social interaction in a number of important ways: Spontaneity – media users are in a position to instantaneously post, tweet, and send comments from anywhere without any safeguarding to vet that communication. Reach – Also, the same time, social media platforms provides instantly global audience, and potentially can reach thousands of recipients, although depending on how popular and followers of the user. Permanence – Messages in the Social media can be reposted or saved in order to create a record that is hard to amend or withdraw. Social media has become phenomenally popular. It is reshaping industries and lives. It also raises new legal issues. Some activities become actionable when conducted via social media; some assets that have been historically protected, cease to be when created via social media. Social media is also becoming an important tool from a corporate perspective, and a number of organisations are now using it to inform, educate, and influence the wider public (Wilson, et.al 2011). Equally, companies have to grapple with increased use of social media by employees and the difficulties this raises given the blurring of the distinctions between personal and professional lives. These developments lead to significance new issues of legal, some of which the legislators are attempting to wrestling with, for example the right to be forgotten as well as some that are left with the Courts. Commercial firms and social enterprises consider the risks and rewards of using social media in law handbook and the practical implications for employers, particularly in light of the influence of the fundamental rights of privacy and freedom of information (Wilson, et.al 2011). Discussion of Findings The commercial firm is using the social media as the following to achieve their goals; Listening One exercise most organisations will want to do, even if they do not directly engage with social media, is to listen to social media conversations to find out what users are saying about them. Several off-the-shelf as well as cloud-based tools can be utilised for this purpose. They not only allow monitoring of individual conversations but also monitoring on a macro-level, for instance via response analysis. These apparatus automatically scrutinize millions of tweets sent daily and reports on how often a topic is mentioned and whether it is mentioned in a positive or negative context (Wilson, et.al 2011). Engagement A key reason to become involved in social media is engagement. Social media provides a means for that organisation to interact directly with its customers and to obtain feedback from them. Handled properly, this can assist in building a brand and creating a buzz as well as awareness to assist in generating brand-marketing leads and attracting new customers. Perhaps the most beneficial outcomes from this interaction are social validation – users who start to organically sponsor ones business or its aspirations and ideals. This electronic word of mouth can be a very powerful marketing and influencing tool. Engagement with users might include commenting on topical issues and the organisation using social media to put their side of the story. One example comes from energy companies that have utilised their social media existence to make a commentary on the augmenting fuel costs and consider the link between costs and wholesale energy prices, as well as providing information on related topics such as energy efficiency. It also allows brands to develop a distinctive tone of voice and style (Wilson, et.al 2011). Advertising Finally, social media is an increasingly important tool for advertising. Other social media sites are in a position to build a very detailed profile concerning their users involving their age, sex, location, connections, and marital status. This allows advertising to be targeted precisely. Sainsburysand other campaigning groups use social media with great intelligence to launch campaigns, mobilise support, and disseminate advocacy pieces. Allied Health Professionals Suffolk have developed business sector that provides occupational physiotherapy, support, ergonomic advice and specialist manual handling training. Allied Health Professionals Suffolk also provides support to emerging health sector social enterprises and consultancy support for business startup. The social enterprise is a community that is interested in working in partnership with their patients, staff, as well as commissioners in developing a continually and improving range of services in order to meet their needs efficiently and effectively. They use the social media to inform the public about their philosophy that includes: - Ensuring patients’ needs are at the Centre of everything we do- Delivering evidence-based quality care and treatment - Developing a responsive, needs-based service, focused on the delivery of individualised patient care that retains dignity and respect for all - Providing staff with the means to maintain the highest standards of professional development - Delivering evidence-based quality care and treatment- - Providing our staff with the means to maintain the highest standards of professional development and acting with pride and integrity, being open and honest and enjoying our work. Conclusion and Recommendations One risk of social media among the commercial firms and social enterprises is too much engagement. Some users are more than happy to share their views in very uncompromising terms. A thick skin is vital. For instance, energy companies using social media accounts to comment on rising fuel costs have received direct and frank feedback from their customers. The same is true in financial services and many other industry sectors. Attempting to suppress critical comment may backfire. Instead, you need to engage with customers and argue your case on the merits. This means your social media team needs to be properly resourced. They will also need to update their social media presence to ensure it remains fresh and manages to respond to user comments. This engagement with users is a vital part of any social media strategy, either to build a distinctive brand or to mollify users’ concerns. Commercial firms have been slower to appreciate the importance of tracking activism through social media and of developing contacts and supporters on social platforms. Investing ahead of time in understanding the dynamics of social media campaigns, and building it into your stakeholder engagement and crisis planning is valuable when they need to communicate their point of view quickly and effectively. Allied Health Professionals Suffolk provides extended service to people with chronic back problems, run a groundbreaking educational programmer for people who may require joint replacements and are working with their commissioning colleagues in order to develop new services in and around chronic pain management as well as other peripheral joint pathologies. References Cavalcante, A., Kesting, P.,&Ulhoi, J. P., 2011. “Business model dynamics and innovation: (re)establishing the missing linkages”, Management Decision, 49 (8), pp. 27-42. Chesbrough, H. 2007. "Business model innovation: its not just about technology anymore", Strategy & Leadership, 35(6), pp. 12-17. Christensen, C. (1997) The Innovator’s Dilemma, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA. 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