` arjan's blog: February 2011

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Process, content and collaboration

Taking a look at today’s business, most companies still have a lot as far as adapting to and leveraging Web 2.0 possibilities is concerned. Sometimes it’s because of fear to open up, sometimes it’s non-compliancy reasons but in most case it’s still unfamiliarity with what benefits it could bring a business or what it is about anyway.

If we zoom into what Enterprise 2.0 or applying Web 2.0 within a corporate environment really implies, there are three factors that are most significant and describe the core of Enterprise 2.0:

  • Process
  • Content and
  • Collaboration

We’ll look into each factor, see what it means and how they finally join to form Enterprise 2.0.

Process
Process means the (business) processes within a company involved in the day to day work people do within that company. This can be handling incoming calls from customers ordering goods and the entire process following that. In all cases those are little steps in the context of a larger sequence of steps. They are orchestrated or governed as you will to finally reach a particular end situation. Important in this respect is that these steps can be operated by an human-being or automated system and that the process is bound to change because of whatever influence from outside.
An aspect of web 2.0 influencing the processes is that now not only the inside of the company is involved in a process (with sometimes a starting point outside) but also the outside world is part of the process. An example of that is when Twitter is used to communicate on a particular issue back and forth or peoples comments on a blog about a new product.
In all circumstance it’s important that when people are involved, the aspect of these people interacting with each other in the steps of the process is crucial for the success.

Content
In Enterprise 2.0 sharing and combining of information is essential. The amount of information or content necessary at a given point in the overall process may vary but inevitably content is needed in order for a process step to make sense. What is important from a content perspective is also who is able to see which information, till what extend and what is the person or system allowed to do with it. This could be referred to as security of the content.
Probably the most crucial part in the content area of Enterprise 2.0 is that everyone shares the same information and people can all work together on that same content at the same time, seamlessly without worrying about things like versioning, etc.

Collaboration
Within the processes people and systems are interacting with each other, collaborating to eventually reach a certain state, product or relationship together.
The strength of people coming together and really collaborating could probably be best explained by the example of Open Source communities creating solutions. Not a single person is able to create whatever product on his own, you will always need others with particular expertise or capabilities which combine together to a particular product. In Open Source communities this is facilitated by Web 2.0 technology that enables discussions, commenting, tagging and drive decisions by rating.
Resulting in a collaborative solution in the end.

Value
We know now what the key elements of Enterprise 2.0 are, but what is it going to bring you? What value is in it from a business perspective? It should however be clear that if people start working together, supported by technology that enables sharing of the same content. And people can collaboratively combine and improve that along a joint and standardized process this will bring several advantages. Advantages like higher quality of work, more efficiency and innovation. This eventually will lead to business value like better customer support, innovative products, cost effectiveness and many more.

Probably a good thing to keep in mind when you send out your next yam or tweet

Capgemini offers you the required technical skills to implement Enterprise 2.0 for instance by the means of Oracle Enterprise 2.0 for you, of course. More important we are able to determine together with you what the most important Enterprise 2.0 areas to focus on are, specifically for your business. Pragmatically choosing the most beneficial areas with the least effort and costs, and fitting it in with your current Oracle or non-Oracle landscape.

So if you think your company is ready to start acting in the Enterprise 2.0 arena based on the above, by working on one of the topics or a combination of these… don’t wait till your competitors start working on Enterprise 2.0, start benefiting now!

Contact us to discuss what value Oracle Enterprise 2.0 can bring your company!

Originally posted on the Capgemini Oracle Blog