The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies

McKinsey Global Institute (MGI)’s report on how better to use social technologies to create more savings across the value chain. While 72 percent of companies use social technologies in some way, very few are anywhere near to achieving the full potential benefit. In fact, the most powerful applications of social technologies in the global economy are largely untapped. Companies will go on developing ways to reach consumers through social technologies and gathering insights for product development, marketing, and customer service. Yet the MGI finds that twice as much potential value lies in using social tools to enhance communications, knowledge sharing, and collaboration within and across enterprises. They estimated that between $900 billion and $1.3 trillion in value can be unlocked in the U.S. alone from these technologies:

• Social networks
• Blogs and micro-blogs
• Ratings and reviews
• Social commerce
• Wikis
• Discussion forums
• Co-created content
• Crowd-sourcing
• Media and file sharing
• Social gaming

Two-thirds of this potential value lies in improving collaboration and communication within and across enterprises. The average interaction worker spends an estimated 28 percent of the workweek managing e-mail and nearly 20 percent looking for internal information or tracking down colleagues who can help with specific tasks. But when companies use social media internally, messages become content; a searchable record of knowledge can reduce, by as much as 35 percent, the time employees spend searching for company information. Additional value can be realized through faster, more efficient, more effective collaboration, both within and between enterprises.

You can download the full report here:

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/mgi/research/technology_and_innovation/the_social_economy