Harris Interactive Memo

Executive Summary: Enterprise Social Networking Survey

Methodology

Harris Interactive® fielded the study online in the United States on behalf of Microsoft from February 13-17, 2012interviewing a nationwide sample of 202decision makers, defined as adults aged 18 years or older who are employed full or part time in an organization with at least 1,000 employees which either currently has or is developing an enterprise social network; senior level business decision makers (n=100) were defined as having a Vice President role or higher and significant decision-making authority for their own department or multiple departments, while IT decision makers (n=102) were defined as working in their organization’s IT department and are either the sole decision maker or have a major influence in decisions regarding IT for their company. Figures for company sizewere weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population.

All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with non-response, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words “margin of error” as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100 percent response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to be invited to participate in the Harris Interactive online research panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

Key Findings – Incidence of enterprise social network Implementation in large organizations

Among all survey respondents who are employed FT/PT as senior level business decision makers (BDM) or IT decision makers (ITDM) at a company with 1,000 or more employees (n=354), 47% report that their organization currently has an enterprise social network in place, while 28% report that it is not in place at this time but it is currently being developed. Only 25% report that their organization does not havean enterprise social network in place and there are no plans to develop one.

Among qualified respondents (decision makers whose organization either has or is developing an enterprise social network) (n=202), 61% report that their organization already has an enterprise social network in place, while 39% report that it is currently being developed.

Key Findings – Involvement of the IT department in the creation of an enterprise social network

Sixty-five percent of decision makers believe that it is absolutely essential/extremely important to involve an organization’s IT department in the creation of an enterprise social network, while 35% consider it somewhat/not important.

A significantly higher percentage of BDMs (75%) than ITDMs (55%) believe that it is absolutely essential/extremely important to involve the IT department in enterprise social network creation.

Key Findings – Leveraging existing investments vs. adopting new social software

A majority (57%) of decision makers report that their organization is inclined to employ a mixture of new social software and leveraging existing investments/infrastructure for their IT solutions. A quarter (25%) report that their organization is more inclined to leverage existing investments, while 18% report that their organization would adopt new social software.

Key Findings – Integration with existing infrastructure

Fifty-nine percent of decision makers believe that it is absolutely essential/extremely important to have social networking integrated with an organization’s existing infrastructure, while 41% consider it somewhat/not important.

A significantly higher percentage of BDMs (68%) than ITDMs (50%) believe that it is absolutely essential/extremely important to have social networking integrated with an organization’s existing infrastructure.

Key Findings – Concerns about implementing a social network

Security (90%) is the top IT concern for a vast majority of decision makers when implementing a social network in an organization. This is followed by integration with existing systems (66%), compliance (53%), governance (44%), ability to build custom applications for social networking (27%), and other (1%). (Responses were limited to their top 3 concerns.)

Key Findings – Critical success factors for social networking solutions

Sixty-six percent of decision makers cite collaboration (more people are talking to each other and getting work done) as a critical success factor for their social networking solution. This is followed by productivity (we can measure actual efficiency gains) at 64%, adoption (people in my organization are actually using it) and adds additional value to business processes (both at 51%), cost savings (42%), and other (1%).

Key Findings – Key factors in the decision to implement a social networking solution

Increased information sharing in the organization (71%) is the top factor decision makers cited as making them decide to implement a social networking solution. This is followed by driving greater collaboration and productivity in the organization (64%), improved business process efficiencies (56%), employees asking for it (36%), creating greater transparency between my business and employees(26%), and other (6%).

Key Findings – Top benefits social networking has provided in the organization

Seventy-two percent of decision makers report that social networking has provided or they expect to provide their organization with greater employee collaboration. This is followed by greater employee productivity (45%), creating a stronger affinity between the business and employees (42%), providing new information about the ways in which people in their organization work (41%), ease of use so people use it (38%), connecting a disparate workforce (34%), and other (3%).

Key Findings – Importance of a pilot program in social networking deployment

Just over half (51%) of decision makers believe that it is absolutely essential/extremely important for a company to start a social networking deployment with a pilot program, while 49% consider it somewhat/not important to start with a pilot program.

Key Findings – Types of communications enabled in enterprise social networking

Sixty-seven percent of decision makers cite instant messaging as a kind of communication that enterprise social networking should enable. This is followed by email (64%), video conferencing (62%), the ability to “follow” people, documents or sites (51%), audio conferencing (47%), activity streams (34%), video sharing (33%), the ability to “like” content or people (28%), microblogging (26%), and other (2%).

Key Findings – Deployment phase of enterprise social networking

When asked what phase their organization is at in terms of it deployment of enterprise social networking, 48% of decision makers report that they are currently at an initial roll out or pilot phase to a limited number of users. Thirty percent say that they have deployed social software broadly across the organization, while 12% have deployed broadly and are now building additional capabilities on top of the social software or are building the social software into business processes. Ten percent reported that they were at another stage.