webinar 5 steps for choosing the right social software platform

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LiquidHubconsulting | solutions | outsourcing

5 Steps for Choosing the Right Social Software PlatformDetermine your collaboration strategy and the right platform will follow

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Twitter hashtags

#socialbiz

www.liquidhub.com


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:

fueling business transformation4

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


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


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


Make vs. Buy Decision

• Existing social networks

• Enterprise applications with social features

• Social software suites


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“


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.


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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”)


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


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


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.


LiquidHub’s Social Media Offerings

Discovery & Planning

Define Social MediaObjectives &

Vision

Social MediaEducation

Define ProjectScope, Plan,Costs, andTimeline

Vendor Product Selection and Implementation


Vision



Conduct Vendor Product Evaluation

& Selection

Define Business Requirements

ImplementProduct &

Deploy SocialCommunities

Ongoing Community Management


Vision



Reporting and Analytics

Ongoing Maintenance and

Monitoring

Listen, Engage,

and Improve


LiquidHub’s Social Media Offerings

Discovery & Planning


Vision



Vendor Product Selection and Implementation


Vision



Conduct Vendor Product Evaluation

& Selection

Define Business Requirements

ImplementProduct &

Deploy SocialCommunities

Ongoing Community Management


Vision



Reporting and Analytics

Ongoing Maintenance and

Monitoring

Listen, Engage,

and Improve


Discussion / Questions

Contact:Cathy Ingham

Technology Manager [email protected]

(610) 715-8308LiquidHub | www.liquidhub.com

Thank You