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Social Enterprise Technologies to leverage corporate hierarchies

How often do we hear that a supervisor did not come up an employee in the hierarchy to protect himself. Social enterprise technologies such as modern intranets raise this because every employee can communicate publicly about his knowledge at the higher levels. Moreover, the communication between the leadership with the employees on the remaining levels is improved.

On a par with the executive board

Some time ago I was sitting with Paul Avenant (BMC president of Enterprise Service Management) in a panel discussion on “How mobility, SaaS and social media are changing IT“. Meanwhile he said that he uses social enterprise technologies very intense to see what his staff have to say. He has learned things that he otherwise would never have noticed, because he was too far away from them. On a virtual level he could conduct a more intensive contact with employees and colleagues, to whom he otherwise has absolutely no direct relationship.

With social enterprise technologies the executive board receives the ability – if only virtually – to be on par with its employees and therefore keep an eye on innovations and other news, allowing it to respond or act directly and made decisions faster.

Effort and ideas are transparent

I have fortunately never experienced this, but sadly heard from some friends and acquaintances: The supervisor as a career blocker. Ideas were sold by the direct supervisor as his own or further trainings suddenly canceled at the last minute because some managers just saw himself exposed to a risk when an employee climb the career ladder beside him. A with appropriate technologies equipped social enterprise tears down these barriers and makes efforts and ideas more transparent. It’s making career blockers life harder on the one hand. On the other hand, the real talent to be recognized.

Technologies are only a means to an end

Mind you, technologies are only a means to an end. A social enterprise must be established and practiced by all employees, which is the biggest challenge as with any change. Keyword: change management. Only then the relevant tools and services make sense, who have positioned themselves in the last few years on the market.

By Rene Buest

Rene Buest is Gartner Analyst covering Infrastructure Services & Digital Operations. Prior to that he was Director of Technology Research at Arago, Senior Analyst and Cloud Practice Lead at Crisp Research, Principal Analyst at New Age Disruption and member of the worldwide Gigaom Research Analyst Network. Rene is considered as top cloud computing analyst in Germany and one of the worldwide top analysts in this area. In addition, he is one of the world’s top cloud computing influencers and belongs to the top 100 cloud computing experts on Twitter and Google+. Since the mid-90s he is focused on the strategic use of information technology in businesses and the IT impact on our society as well as disruptive technologies.

Rene Buest is the author of numerous professional technology articles. He regularly writes for well-known IT publications like Computerwoche, CIO Magazin, LANline as well as Silicon.de and is cited in German and international media – including New York Times, Forbes Magazin, Handelsblatt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Wirtschaftswoche, Computerwoche, CIO, Manager Magazin and Harvard Business Manager. Furthermore Rene Buest is speaker and participant of experts rounds. He is founder of CloudUser.de and writes about cloud computing, IT infrastructure, technologies, management and strategies. He holds a diploma in computer engineering from the Hochschule Bremen (Dipl.-Informatiker (FH)) as well as a M.Sc. in IT-Management and Information Systems from the FHDW Paderborn.

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