In my previous post, I talked about the basics of Enterprise 2.0. Please view the Enterprise 2.0 in Plain English-Part 1 here.
Let’s go specific now, and discuss one example of Enterprise 2.0 Portal which would bring your customers and partners closer to your team. Here is how each department in your organization would benefit from this.

Marketing and PR

• Improves brand loyalty and awareness
• Facilitates access to direct market research & fosters buzz marketing
• Promotes product advertising and PR campaigns

Sales

• Increases sales insight in respect to customers
• Increases demand and lead generation
• Adds more touch-points during the customer lifecycle

R&D / Engineering / Product Management

• Customer contribution to product features increases
• Decreases R&D expenditures
• Increases focus on customer needs

Service and Support

• Improves service levels
• Decreases support costs

The illustration above tries to illustrate the features of building a community between a customer and a partner

Sounds Great! How would I Implement it?
Below is the step by step Implementation plan for implementing Enterprise 2.0:

1. Evaluate the need for communities that map to your current business goals
2. Design the social architecture for the community
3. Map the Social Architecture to Technology
4. Launch the community
5. Appoint a Community Manager who is responsible for growing and maintaining the community
6. Get customer feedback, and improve the social architecture and community features

Appulse Enterprise 2.0 evangelists can take up the reins from Step 1, and guide you through the complete process step by step, and assist you by offering following services

• Conceptualizing your Customer and Partner community
• Technology Implementation
• Community Launch
• Community Management using our team of community managers

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What is Enterprise 2.0?
Enterprise 2.0 refers to the concept of incorporating Web 2.0 tools and technologies into the work process of an enterprise. It helps the employees, partners, suppliers and customers of an organization to work together and build networks.

Why is it important for you?
Unlike the concept of one-way conversation, where a company communicates with the site visitors individually, Enterprise 2.0 allows you to implement a multi-party conversation to share information. It also allows you to manage knowledge inside and outside of the organization using blogs and wikis, social networking and tagging, rating systems and other such utilities. The links provided in these tools facilitate the individuals involved to participate and control the process while working together, sharing information and creating networks with people sharing similar interests.

How can Enterprise 2.0 help me with my marketing and business goals?
Enterprise 2.0 offers an array of benefits for Software and Technology companies. Enterprise 2.0 tools are capable of connecting different groups in an organization and ecosystem partners by creating infinite links among your channel partners, distributors and associated groups. These links surpass the benefits and features of other powerful links already existing between these entities. These links with enhanced features cultivate a breed of innovation, creativity, and cross pollination among different entity groups. Simple productivity gains are just one aspect of Enterprise 2.0 and it is much more capable of gaining additional returns over and above its simple productivity gains.

Below is the list of some rewarding benefits of Enterprise 2.0 for your organization

• Cultivates Long-Term Relations Between Customers and Partners
• Provides Customer Feedback and New Perspectives which facilitate the introduction of new products and services
• Facilitates Department-wise Knowledge and Expertise Sharing with Customers
• Accelerates Growth Factor by Making the Most of Existing resources
• Gathers everyone on a common page/platform.
• Self Service Searchable Portals Minimize Customer Support Costs

In the next post, I would write specifics how your sales and marketing can benefit from Enterprise 2.0 technologies.

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