Collaboration and Social Business; MBA Information Systems and Business Analytics
Collaboration is a working practice where people or groups work together to attain a shared goal. It is common in businesses, where different departments have different roles, but they cooperate to achieve a goal (Velikorossov et al., 2020, p. 415). For example, a collaboration between suppliers, workers, and managers is needed if an organisation offers goods and services. Depending on the nature of the work and mission, the collaboration would be short or long-term, and the relevant people would collaborate in informal or formal groups. Collaboration plays a significant role in improving innovation and communication and increasing efficiency and success. Working as a team gives workers a sense of purpose at work and improves productivity. However, collaboration brainstorming ideas is easier to solve an existing problem or deliver work as required. This leads to increased success, improved communication, increased innovations, and increased work efficiency.
Unlike other businesses, establishing a social business aims to increase the social impact or improve the quality of goods and services. Social business is where the business stakeholders network via social platforms, thus engaging the employees, buyers, and suppliers. A social business is a form of business established for a social objective. The social business aims to develop close relationships between the internal and external players of the organisation, boosting information sharing, development, and better decisions (Kraus et al. 2018). They are necessary because information sharing and decision-making must engage everyone to ensure the goal is met. Innovation is highly needed currently, as buyers’ tastes and preferences change.
Collaboration and social business systems are essential in business today, where technologies are used to create networking. The nature of work has changed entirely, and jobs need close interaction between the members involved in a group project. These jobs that require interactions are regarded as the most ‘professional’ jobs, especially in the tertiary sector (Laudon and Laudon, 2020). Furthermore, in this social business era, Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and other social tools are used because they use high-quality technologies enabling the fulfilment of social business. Collaborative technology uses tools that include instant messaging, shared workspaces and calendars, note-taking on online whiteboards, communities, video conferencing, and live chats.
Consequently, the use of the internet, smartphones, and computers is crucial for applying both social and collaboration technologies (Miljanic and Zaric, 2020, p. 3). These aspects are vital today because organisations’ structure is changing, and even though senior managers are there, they are not giving as detailed instructions as in the past because everyone has a say in the decision-making process. Additionally, collaboration is so important today due to the changing culture of work, as it is evident nowadays that teams perform much better than individuals.
Business benefits of Collaboration and Social Business
Collaboration and social business are beneficial to any business. For instance, through collaboration and social business, productivity is increased through the knowledge generated when people work together, resulting in higher efficiency (Gauthier et al., 2020, p. 590). There are fewer chances of errors and a better quality of goods and services is provided, as working together guarantees effective communication and mistakes are corrected on time. Communication reduces time delays and smooth production, resulting in better quality than when the stakeholders do not collaborate. Also, creativity and innovation are attained as crowd wisdom develops. When people collaborate, they generate ideas, research, and analyze them, thus learning those fit in their operations. Diversity is also created, increasing the pool of ideas. Customer service also improves when collaboration and social business are implemented. Since the stakeholders are united, they identify customers’ complaints and concerns and address them fast and efficiently as each party understands his/her role in resolving the issue. Finally, the businesses perform better financially as sales increase and production processes are run better, resulting to higher profits.
Describing a supportive organizational culture and business process for Collaboration
Realizing collaboration and social business benefits needs a supportive organizational culture and business processes for collaboration. A supportive culture requires the senior leaders to develop a close relationship with other stakeholders (Men and Yue, 2019, p. 101764). An open door communication policy is needed, allowing parties to access each other regardless of their positions. The organizational culture should also be open, allowing testing and implementation of ideas. A collaborative business process is an integrated business relevant to all participating organizations. This process involves the interaction of business entities from a neutral perspective while ensuring that interactions of all partners are captured.
Types of Collaboration and Social Business tools
Collaboration and social business require tools connecting the leaders, employees, suppliers, and buyers. Email, instant messaging, video conferencing, live chats, shared calendars and online notetaking whiteboards are the tools used to ensure collaboration and interaction. They are sent and received via computers, smartphones, tablets, and other wireless devices. They ensure real-time conversations where several participants are engaged (Miljanic and Zaric, 2020, p. 3). Wikis is the other tool used, which is a website where users share content and graphics even though they lack programming expertise. Wikipedia is the most popular since it is free and does not allow advertisements, thus useful for storing and sharing corporate information (Bazan and Estevez, 2019). The virtual world is the other applicable tool in collaboration and social business. The platforms have residents with graphic representations called avatars. It allows businesses have meetings, socialize and share ideas in virtual locations (Machado et al., 2020, p.180). Lastly, Google Tools and other cloud collaboration services as well as enterprise social networking tools like Jive and IBM Connections are also used for different purposes like online file-sharing and editing (Laudon and Laudon, 2020).
In conclusion, even though collaboration and social business begin as a culture, tools are also important; by considering an integrated approach of collaboration and social business tools, which begin by achieving a comprehensive intranet, any business can boost its ability to save and increase efficiency and work smarter. While a collaborative culture involves a shift in leadership thinking, it is important not to underestimate the importance of collaboration tools.
