- Enterprise 2.0 is more adjective (a way of approaching value creation) than noun or verb. Business cases thrive on nouns (investments to make, people to hire or fire, things to sell) and verbs (business processes and use cases). Unlike, e.g. ERP, CRM, or ECM, companies don’t go out and buy an “enterprise 2.0″ as if it were a single definable system. This alone gets the conversation off to a bad start when talking about “enterprise 2.0 business case” — it is just too broad and imprecise to begin to really tackle. Let’s instead get down to specific enterprise 2.0 applications and enterprise 2.0-enabled business processes.
- (To extent noun at all) enterprise 2.0 is more platform than a single business system. Alas, business cases for platform investments typically require yet more assumptions and wreck havoc on the previous point of getting to specific business processes for the business case calculation.
- Enterprise 2.0 use cases are still emerging and not fully predictable.
- (That said, finally some good news) Enterprise 2.0 use cases patterns are also emerging and could guide business case creation…when the investment and/or risk is sufficient that a formal business case is required.
- Intangible does not equate to “without possibility of predicting value.” The business world predicts the value of intangibles all the time, e.g. the stock market. Sufficient assumptions, work, and sophistication will get you there…at least in the ballpark. Yikes…speaking of the ballpark, I need publish this and really watch THE game, versus running back and forth between the home office and living room. GO RED SOX!
- ROI is an overloaded term. Most people use it rather loosely to mean some common sense notion of “is this investment worth doing?” I’m fine there. Unfortunately ROI also has a more precise meaning of a particular method of financial calculation — one that is deeply flawed for capital investment decisions. Therefore, better to talk about “enterprise 2.0 [insert-noun] value” or “enterprise 2.0 [insert-noun] business case“
- While I am on a rant…let’s not call pre-2007 Sharepoint and other basic shared-workspace collaboration packages “enterprise 2.0,” but rather reserve that already slippery moniker for the application of wiki, blog, RSS, social-bookmarking, social-networks, etc. (triggered by #4 below)
This rant and reflection was prompted and guided by:
- Luis Suarez’s ELSUA blog: “Making the Business Case for Social Computing” (Part I and Deux); continuing with “Commenting further on ROI and Social Computing” (Part I and Part II)
- Dennis Howlett’s ROI is so Business 1.0: not in ZDNet — which, in part, was reply to Luis’s first ‘Part I’. My favorite clip:
- Olivier Amprimo‘s (Non) Adoption of social computing in organisations: busyness or laziness? came out two months earlier. My favorite clips:
- Rakesh Vajpai’s question in LinkedIn: Enterprise 2.0 – Strategic Investment or Tangible ROI ?
- Christian’s Smagg’s Enterprise 2.0 … Show me the ROI and a parallel LinkedIn Answers thread (26 October: link updated)
…you need a value figure with which to develop the calculation. Forrester has already tripped up over this one, concluding, as do many others, that the benefits (are these the same as value?) are ’soft’ and therefore difficult to measure. The fact something is difficult is not an excuse yet this is how ROI is positioned.
Most traditional IT solutions are designed to address one and only one issue. E.g. if one wants to improve its customer relations, it will go for a CRM solution. One problem, one solution. From there is it pretty easy to analyse and measure the variation and consequently provide a priori answers on ROI. Traditional software vendors sell “solutions”.
and
The ROI question does have an answer. Measurement is possible, but context is king. It is only when in context, where the issue to address is well defined, where tools are correctly customised to processes and credentials, that the impact of social computing can be measured. Measurement is possible when implemented, a posteriori. Back to basics.