According to a recent Bulldog Reporter article, research from MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte Consulting reveals that 52 percent of respondents to a recent survey gave their business a three or below (out of ten) on social business maturity. The same report also shows that 36 percent of the 2,500 surveyed executives rated social business as important, compared to just 18 percent last year.

The MIT/Deloitte report, “Social Business: Shifting out of First Gear,” points to three factors that cause this discrepancy and halt the progress in social business maturity:

  1. A lack of an overall strategy (28 percent of respondents)
  2. Too many competing priorities (26 percent)
  3. A lack of a demonstrated business case or strong value proposition (21 percent)

David Kiron, executive editor for the MIT Sloan Management Review, explains that companies making strong social business value have good executive leadership in applying these capabilities to business problems. And the study shows this—more than 70 percent of CEOs, CIOs, and CMOs say social business is an opportunity to change working dynamics, and are using it to open up new opportunities for effective collaboration.

In addition to these statistics, the survey looked closely at businesses with higher social business maturity and identified several specific elements to their success:

  • Integration is important. Businesses with more developed capabilities for social business don’t view it as just a tool or application, but as a strategy to integrate across many functions in the company, and to map to business challenges.
  • The value of social business. Sixty-five percent of mature companies recognize the value of social business tools in identifying market shifts. Forty-five percent use it to improve visibility into operations, and 45 percent to identify internal talent.
  • There are four major factors for social business success. Leadership, specifically company leaders actively driving social use and advocating a social culture. Measurement, because social maturity isn’t instant—it evolves through experimentation and learning. Quality content, because socially effective companies create, curate, and refresh their own high value content. Appropriate process, or engaging business process design to enable achievement, was also identified as a major factor for social business success.

How would you rank your company’s social business maturity on a scale of 1 to 10? What can companies do to improve their social business maturity? We’d love to hear your feedback on this topic in the comments section below!

If you’re in healthcare, insurance, technology or other professional services industries, and need help with a PR, marketing or social media campaign, contact Scott Public Relations.

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