There are endless discussions of what would increase adoption of Web2.0 in the enterprise. And to this point we have not seen the kind of success (both customer adoption and financial exit) that MySpace and Facebook enjoys evolving enterprise space. But then again that is a supply-side view of the markets (meaning I built it why don’t they come?).
If we take a demand view the picture is more interesting and complicated. Two of the major elements of Enterprise 2.0 (depending on who you ask) is SOA and Social Networks/Collaboration. Neither of which is really new to the enterprise. Most companies we work with have an SOA roadmap with varying level of potential plans for the transformation of the user experience. But it is there. As far as collaboration goes - it is amazing what some IT shops do with Notes and some Web savvy…
Will an enterprise user be more pleasantly engaged with a mashed-up, Ajax-powered collaboration tool of late than a good old Lotus Notes hyperlinked environment juiced up with Websphere and Sametime? Probably. Will there be a massive jump in productivity, creativity and get-goingness? Doubtful.
And that is the rub in the green eyeshade-tinted world of Enterprise IT. The cubicle-bound technology innovator in a major company is faced with the following obstacles - that also severely limit the sales aspirations of the next Enterprise 2.0 startup:
- 5% Innovation Budget - Many large IT shops spend 50-70% of their budgets on depreciation and operations (a.k.a keeping the lights on), 20-25% on application development, maintenance and the remaining sliver on potential R&D. And that covers everything from the Web front-end to the good old Cobol accounting system, the latest data harmonization or integration standard, mobile apps and (of course) journey into Web 2.0. Many times there is simply not enough IT bandwidth to get a real foothold beyond the tinkerers.
- Breaking from the Pack - There are diminishing rewards for the adventuring technologist in an IT group for being a first mover. Careers are typically tied to core enterprise applications, traditional web properties, analytics and enterprise architecture work. The lone innovator needs the support of some powerful internal allies to launch an emerging solution project.
- Push for Lean IT - Most large IT organizations still have not worked out the excesses of technology excuberance and the resulting proliferation of the technology and application portfolio. Many shops launched simplification, standardization, data harmonization initiatives to clean up the mess, get costs in line and free up money and people to tackle the next programs.
- Investment justification - Most IT groups struggle with the justification of SOA and Collaboration investments and just classify them as strategic or infrastructure investments. This is a mistake. There are great studies of the value of collaboration and SOA from everyone from McKinsey to SAP and business arguments will pave a more predictable success for approval.
In a recent McKinsey study (subscription) the IT group of a Utility company spent over $4 Million a year in collaboration related personnel costs. Projecting this to all enterprise functions we are in the tens of millions in costs. The potential savings, more than any user experience improvement, will get enterprise adoption going.
The great news is that freed-up budgets will be looking for exactly the kind of value proposition Enterprise 2.0 offers. Better user experience, flexible applications, user-driven configuration, web-desktop integration. This can also be IT’s big comeback for better alignment with the business user.
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