fueling business transformation 1 fueling business transformation 1 LiquidHub consulting | solutions | outsourcing 5 Steps for Choosing the Right Social Software Platform Determine your collaboration strategy and the right platform will follow
fueling business transformation1 fueling business transformation1
LiquidHubconsulting | solutions | outsourcing
5 Steps for Choosing the Right Social Software PlatformDetermine your collaboration strategy and the right platform will follow
fueling business transformation2
Twitter hashtags
#socialbiz
www.liquidhub.com
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LiquidHub . . . Fueling Business Transformation Overview: An award winning and rapidly growing technology consultancy and systems
integrator founded in 2001
Associates: 500 associates providing high-end IT services in Consulting, Solutions, and Outsourcing
Locations: Fueling business transformation for clients internationally from our headquarters in Philadelphia and our Global Delivery Center in Hyderabad, India
Industries: Healthcare & Life Sciences, Financial Services & Insurance, Emerging Markets
We are a nimble organization, able to respond quickly to our clients’ needs, bringing local accountability and executive focus, deep technology expertise, thought leadership, best practices, and solutions focused on your business
www.liquidhub.com
Differentiators:
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Our Presenter
Cathy InghamTechnology Manager, LiquidHub
• Extensive IT management experience in social media, project management, Business Intelligence and data warehousing
• Industry expertise in pharmaceutical, healthcare & financial services
• Member of the Board of Advisors for LiquidHub’s charitable arm, LiquidHelp
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Agenda
1. The importance of strategy
2. The make vs. buy decision
3. The required cultural change
4. Choosing a platform: a client example– Preliminary research in the space – Vendor demos– Testing in sandbox sites
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Importance of Strategy
• Define your objectives and vision for using social media– How will social media fit in to the overall business strategy?
• Identify the business need– What business problems are you attempting to solve?
• Map strategy to requirements– What social communities will be deployed?– What features are needed in the communities?– Who will be members of the communities?– Who will be allowed to do what within the community?
• Evaluate vendor products based on the requirements
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Make vs. Buy Decision
• Existing social networks
• Enterprise applications with social features
• Social software suites
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Market Research – A Varied Vendor Landscape
There are large number of vendors, but products tend to fall into categories:
1. Targeted at a specific customer base– Educational institutions or law firms
2. Focused on specific business applications – Career networking, corporate events, or customer support
3. Oriented from an individual user's perspective vs. a community perspective
4. Primarily social vs. collaboration vs. a balance of both– “Social Collaboration“
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Change Management: People, Process & Technology
• Many people have already embraced social media at home
• Are businesses ready for the same type of communication?• Cultural, infrastructure and process changes are necessary to
support social collaboration.• Many companies have already moved to a more open,
collaborative and multi-directional model of communication.• According to Forrester, in 2010, nearly one-third of enterprises
will officially support internal and/or external social networking. Ref: Koplowitz, Rob. Enterprise Social Networking 2010 Market Overview. Forrester Research, Inc. April 22, 2010.
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Choosing a Platform: Client Profile
• Biopharmaceutical Professional Association– 18,000 users worldwide– Collaboration for special interest groups
• The Business Problem– Difficult to collaborate in email– Difficult to share files among the group– No central collaboration space– Point of Pain: Multiple products used for different
aspects of collaboration with no single sign on capability
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High Level Requirements
• Community home page / collaboration space• Social apps: discussion forum, blogs, member profiles • Collaboration: file sharing– nested file folders– migrate content from existing repositories
• Event calendar• Separate “Group Spaces” for sub-group collaboration• Multilingual including support for Japanese & Chinese
characters• Totally white-label, branded for the client• Easy to use and administer• Analytics & reporting capabilities
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Preliminary Research: from 100+ to 26
• Identify vendors in the space that meet client requirements– Research vendor websites– Analyst white papers & ratings– Consumer ratings– Industry experts
• Sources to identify initial pool of vendors
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More Scrutiny: from 26 to 15 to 10
• Conduct vendor conference calls: from 26 – 15– Describe project requirements to vendors – Deeper dive analyzing vendor website and materials– Further research of customer feedback, analyst ratings and
commentaries
• Conduct vendor demos: from 15 – 10– Analyze how the vendor products meet each requirement– Begin rating features for quantitative analysis
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Sandbox Testing: from 10 to 5
• Build sandbox test environments for 10 vendor products– Vendors provided with high level requirements and UI visual design– The speed at which some vendors were able to stand up the sites using
our design and feature requirements was informative
• Test vendor products– Hands-on testing as to how well they meet client business
requirements– Evaluate ease of administration and configuration
• Drag & drop administration– Evaluate analytics and reporting capability, minimally:
• Is the vendor currently capturing data• On product roadmap to build out reporting
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RFP process: from 5 to 3
• Sign NDAs with vendors– Two vendors dropped during NDA negotiations
• Issue RFPs to 5 vendors• Review / rate RFP submissions
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Team Demos: from 3 to 2
• Invite vendors to conduct demos to business areas
– Provide vendor company overview to business areas– Demo software using sandbox site focusing on client requirements
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Team Sandbox Testing: from 2 to 1• Team testing of top 2 vendors
• Prepare test script for business user testing covering client’s social media requirements
• Conduct detailed reference checks• IT technical review of products
– Software stability– Single Sign On integration– Integration with internal systems– API– Security – Backup / Recovery– System availability and performance
• Tabulate Comparative Results
Recommendation: IGLOO Software
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Key Deciding Factors for Selecting IGLOO
• Ease of use, administration, and deployment
• File sharing, organization and upload capability– Organization of files in
nested folders– File / folder drag-and-
drop capability (IGLOO “Desktop Client”)
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Key Deciding Factors for Selecting IGLOO
• Ability to support sub-groups (IGLOO “Group Spaces”)
• Architecture holistically created for social collaboration, and not an evolution into social media from some other legacy application
• Able to support the client’s permission model requirements
• IGLOO’s commitment to project success
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The Top 5 Steps for Choosing the Right Platform
1. Identify the business need: figure out what is driving the need for change
2. State your objectives: recognize what you’re trying to accomplish and why
3. Map your strategy to requirements: determine which features are required to support your strategy
4. Understand the organizational implications: from an operational, technical and cultural perspective
5. Use third-party research to shortlist vendors: but vet the list through demonstrations and sandbox testing
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A Call to Action
More and more businesses are deploying social communities.
The time is now to begin working to deploy those communities.
This will require analysis up front to define your strategy and plan how to incorporate social media into your overall business strategy. This is the key to minimizing risk of a failed social media project.
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LiquidHub’s Social Media Offerings
Discovery & Planning
Define Social MediaObjectives &
Vision
Social MediaEducation
Define ProjectScope, Plan,Costs, andTimeline
Vendor Product Selection and Implementation
Define Social MediaObjectives &
Vision
Social MediaEducation
Define ProjectScope, Plan,Costs, andTimeline
Conduct Vendor Product Evaluation
& Selection
Define Business Requirements
ImplementProduct &
Deploy SocialCommunities
Ongoing Community Management
Define Social MediaObjectives &
Vision
Social MediaEducation
Define ProjectScope, Plan,Costs, andTimeline
Reporting and Analytics
Ongoing Maintenance and
Monitoring
Listen, Engage,
and Improve
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LiquidHub’s Social Media Offerings
Discovery & Planning
Define Social MediaObjectives &
Vision
Social MediaEducation
Define ProjectScope, Plan,Costs, andTimeline
Vendor Product Selection and Implementation
Define Social MediaObjectives &
Vision
Social MediaEducation
Define ProjectScope, Plan,Costs, andTimeline
Conduct Vendor Product Evaluation
& Selection
Define Business Requirements
ImplementProduct &
Deploy SocialCommunities
Ongoing Community Management
Define Social MediaObjectives &
Vision
Social MediaEducation
Define ProjectScope, Plan,Costs, andTimeline
Reporting and Analytics
Ongoing Maintenance and
Monitoring
Listen, Engage,
and Improve
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Discussion / Questions
Contact:Cathy Ingham
Technology Manager [email protected]
(610) 715-8308LiquidHub | www.liquidhub.com
Thank You