So we've all read about and had direct experiences with social media from an external internet standpoint, but what about inside our companies? Probably not too much going on there other than a simple intranet and emails. That is unless your company is an innovator like Accenture.
According to an article in 1to1 Magazine, Accenture is making bold moves to help their 180,000 employees get to know each other a whole lot better. Using web 2.0 technology, Accenture is moving toward what they call the Borderless Workplace Initiative.
The article quotes Frank Modruson, Accenture's CIO as saying:
We feel with this kind of technology the advantage will go to the early adopters. The core of our initiative is bringing social networking into Accenture, to bring the power of every employee together to make it easier to do business.
So their Borderless workplace includes the following:
- A wiki call Accenture Encyclopedia which is a media exchange resembling YouTube
- Personal blogs for employees
- A social network for employees so they can collaborate, share knowledge and find subject matter to answer customer questions.
The company also developed 148 customer microsites to help its marketing and sales teams develop stronger customer relationships. Each site acts as a portal for each client's team so members from every customer touchpoint have access to the content and receive feedback through the site. The sites can also leverage all of Accentures social media tools including discussion boards, podcasts, video streams and wikis.
Accenture measures both hard and soft metrics to see how well the concept is utilized. Cost of operation is how the company measures ROI and they say with the reduced travel costs from telepresence alone the intiative is a slam dunk. They plan to roll the program out by the end of the year.
Accenture says it has shaped its culture around networking, sharing, connecting and teaming. Any company or organization who wants to stay out front in the race for innovation and efficiency should go to school on what Accenture is doing with social media.
For companies both large and small, its time to embrace social media from the inside...out.