SOCIAL BUSINESS
The Term of Social business was invented by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus in his book “Creating a world without poverty” (Yunus, 2006). The original intention was to solve poverty and other social problems in third world countries by encouraging and enabling social business model networks. Muhammad Yunus created microcredit concept for improving local small business opportunities and enhancing achieving social objectives. One the principle is to provide good and benefit to society not for owners.
Muhammad Yunus is presenting the original idea of social business in the video.
The book was launched 2007 and at that time the growth of the technology which enabled social media was still to be seen.
SOCIAL BUSINESS TODAY
Today social business is meaning more. In 2007 the idea was to solve poverty problems and enable small business growth for helping society to survive. Today the corporate world has adopted the term and technology solutions for social networking have become in everyones lifes. One can say, that today the social business term has completely different meaning than ten years ago. When we discuss about social business we need to always find common understanding what we are really talking about.
The definion by IBM is selected here from many definitions as it is focusing much on knowledge management area. In the video below the definition of Social Business is defined how IBM is seeing it.
IBM definitely is seeing technological advancements as an enablers for social business.
It helps networks of people to make better business value and increase opportunities.
SOCIAL BUSINESS DESIGN
There is no commonly agreed meaning of social business but in this blog we stick to IBMs definition for social business – It helps networks of people to make better business value and increase opportunities.
What is social business planning ? Social business planning is helping to define actions and timelines for getting the better business value and more opportunities for the company. In practise company should define as part of their strategy what is their social business strategy plan.
The topics in the social business plan can be e.g.
- Social media approach (Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook…)
- How to utilize social media analytics ?
- How to use crowd sourcing opportunities (for small companies funding, for big companies data sourcing)
- How the communication is defined in official and social media communication
- Who updates and who is in charge of social business in the company
- What is the approach in the company for utilizing social networks inside of company.
- Is company using social networking tools in internal communication
- What is the approach on security side ? Are the tools safe or is the company exposing data to criminal use ?
- How to use social media in recruiting ?
SOCIAL BUSINESS PLANNING APPLICATIONS
When a company is planning social business the first steps to take is to define the strategy. The social business model canvas is modified version of business model canvas. Instead of value proposition in original business model canvas, in social business model canvas this is replaced by type of intervation, wich is crucial in social business. The business model value proposition in social business model is shifted to right representing the customer in original business model canvas.
Click to access Social-Business-Model-Canvas-Example.pdf
After the social business planning strategy has been defined, the next step is action planning. In social business context this can be short term planning as defining upcoming social business actions in the current year and the long term actions which are targeting to serve up strategical goal.
SOCIAL BUSINESS FUTURE AND HOW PLANNING THE PLANNING FOR IT IS CHANGING
Facebook, twitter, Linkedin. They all have started from zero within the last ten years. What is the future of them is not yet seen but slack, yammer and other social media tools are coming to wider use enabling more faster and realtime communications in social networks.
The planning of social business design in the companies need to follow carefully these new technologies and opportunities they are given. One can say that following up the technological trends in social business is an input for social business planning.
The EU is going to take tougher grip on data privacy and personal data handling and this law will come in use in Spring 2018. This law is aimed to protect personal data misuse and leakage and will certainly introduce new requirements for managing the data gathered from social media applications.
SUMMARY
Social business is about ten year old term but the meaning of the term has already changed dramatically. Clever social business utilization today is creating more business value and opportunities for companies. It can be expected that the evolution is not yet over and there will be new ways to utilize social networks in future.
The EU is going to take tougher grip on data privacy and personal data handling and this law will come in use in Spring 2018. This law is aimed to protect personal data misuse and leakage and will certainly introduce new requirements for managing the data gathered from social media applications.
REFERENCES
Yunus, Muhammad (2007). Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. PublicAffairs. p. 21. ISBN 978-1-58648-493-4.
(http://www.socialbusinessmodelcanvas.com/)
(http://www.i-scoop.eu/social-business/defining-social-business/)
SOME Social Media 14 