Our partner, Jive Software, conducted a customer survey open to all Jive Software customers. All statistics are from a survey conducted Dec. 2010 by third-party market research firm.
More than 500 people from more than 350 companies responded; more than 60% of respondents came from companies with more than 5,000 employees. More than 10% of respondents came from companies with more than 100,000 employees. Nearly 1/3 of respondents use Jive for both internal and external communities.
Key Finding #1: Social Business Drives Breakthrough Business Results
The first key finding revealed that customers are adopting social in the enterprise to change the way they do business and generate material breakthroughs in revenue, cost-savings and innovation. The business benefits from Social Business adoption extend across three key audiences: employees, customers and the social web.
Top Employee Engagement Benefits:
- 39 percent increase in employee connectedness;
- 32 percent more ideas generated and captured;
- 30 percent increase in employee satisfaction;
- 27 percent less email;
- 32 percent reduction in time to find answers; and
- 37 percent increase in project collaboration and productivity.
Top Customer Engagement Benefits:
- 42 percent more communication with customers;
- 31 percent increase in customer retention;
- 34 percent higher brand awareness;
- 28 percent decrease in support call volume;
- 34 percent more feedback and ideas from customers; and
- 27 percent increase in new customer sales.
Key Finding #2: Social Business Software Adoption is Pervasive
The survey also found that Social Business software is being adopted at a large scale across a broad range of industries. Eighty-three percent of participants reported that they are implementing enterprise-wide Social Business initiatives. This is indicative of the pervasive use of Social Business software to fundamentally change different business processes, from the way employees collaborate to the way companies engage with their customers.
The survey further showed that Social Business is adopted across many industries. From the respondents surveyed, over 35 industries were represented. The top ten industries are:
- High tech (software/hardware, computer services);
- Financial services;
- Communications / Telecommunications;
- Healthcare;
- Media / Marketing / Advertising;
- Retail / Wholesale;
- Education;
- Consumer goods;
- Government; and
- Insurance.
Key Finding #3: Social Business is Mission-Critical
The last finding showed that Social Business is a mission-critical initiative that requires a tight partnership between IT and business to be successful. IT needs to be closely involved to ensure that the Social Business system has the right scalability, security and corporate governance standards required by the enterprise.
“Our customers’ feedback clearly indicates that Social Business has a material impact on business performance,” said Tony Zingale, Jive CEO. “We expect 2011 to be an inflection point for mainstream adoption in the enterprise, as customers continue to see accelerated returns from their investments.”
