McKinsey’s fifth annual survey of 4,200 global executives indicates that social tools and technologies (i.e., social media) are continuing to seep into many organizations, transforming business processes and raising performance. Findings include:
- Organizations are improving their mastery of social technologies.
- Organizations using social technologies to enhance operations and exploit new market opportunities.
- Social technologies can boost a company’s financial performance and market share.
McKinsey professionals note that social technology in organizations is very dynamic, where the gains from using social technologies sometimes do not persist, perhaps because it takes so much effort to achieve them at scale.
Some companies reaped fewer benefits and thus became less networked, while a smaller percentage learned how to deploy these technologies to become even more networked. Executives say that their companies are using them to increase their agility and to manage organizational complexity. Many believe that if organizational barriers to the use of social technologies diminish, they could form the core of entirely new business processes that may radically improve performance.
My take
McKinsey’s scholarly survey further proves what many of us that are championing social media, social technology and online communications see every day. Social media is growing exponentially in its use and importance, whether it’s for internal communications, customer relations, inbound marketing or a myriad of other innovative applications.
Read or download the entire report at McKinsey Quarterly.