Enterprise social adoption trends across SMBs and large companies

Use of
social tools
varies
across businesses
of
different s
izes

• Employees at SMBs are more likely to use several social tools for work, and they are also more likely to use a mix of internal and external social tools, including the following:

• Public FTP/cloud storage (37 percent of SMB employees versus 30 percent of employees at large companies)

• External social networks (35 percent versus 29 percent)

• Blogging platforms (19 percent versus 16 percent)

• Microblogging (19 percent versus 16 percent)

• Web aggregators (16 percent versus 13 percent)

• However, those working at larger companies are more likely to be using team sites/intranets (61 percent of employees at large companies versus 51 percent of SMB employees) and videoconferencing (53 percent versus 49 percent).

• The top use for social tools across both SMBs and large enterprises is communicating with colleagues (7 in 10 respondents).

Despite demand, barriers to adoption still exist

• Employees at large companies are more likely than SMB employees to say their employer restricts the use of certain social tools. The top tools to be restricted are these:

• External social networks (34 percent of large companies restrict versus 25 percent of smaller companies)

• Microblogging (33 percent versus 24 percent)

• Internal social networks (27 percent versus 21 percent)

• Blogging platforms (26 percent versus 19 percent)

• Security concerns is the top reason employers restrict the use of social tools: 71 percent of employees at large companies and 60 percent of SMB employees say these restrictions are in place because of security concerns. Other concerns include these:

• Productivity loss (58 percent of large companies versus 59 percent of small companies)

• Human resources concerns (28 percent in both large and small companies)

• Company image (27 percent versus 21 percent)

• Data loss (25 percent versus 22 percent)

Overall
d
ata
highlights
an
immense demand
and
huge partner opportunity

• Nearly 50 percent of employees at both SMBs and large companies indicated that using enterprise social tools has increased their productivity (49 percent of SMBs and 45 percent of large companies).

• Thirty-nine percent of employees at SMBs and 36 percent of employees at large companies say they could do their jobs better if management was more supportive of the use of social tools.

• Thirty-four percent of employees at SMBs and 30 percent of employees at large companies say they would be willing to spend their own money on enterprise social tools.