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Social Media Utilization in Industrial B2B Relations
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Jari Jussila Tampere University of Technology
Hannu Kärkkäinen Tampere University of Technology
Heli Aramo-Immonen Tampere University of Technology
Jani Multasuo Tampere University of Technology
Outline
• Definitions of social media and the related concept web 2.0
• Research motivations, aims, and design • Results of empirical study of 125 Finnish
business-to-business companies
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Jari Jussila 10/11/15
Definition of Social Media and Web 2.0
• Not only Facebook! • Web 2.0 means technologies that enable users to
communicate, create content and share it with each other via communities, social networks and virtual worlds, making it easier than before.
• Such tools and technologies emphasize the power of users to select, filter, publish and edit information (Tredinnick, 2006), as well as to participate in the creation of content in social media.
• Web 2.0 applications support the creation of informal users’ networks facilitating the flow of ideas and knowledge by allowing the efficient generation, dissemination, sharing and editing / refining of informational content.
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Focus on B2B (Business-to-Business) sector
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• Important starting points: large part of B2B’s consider social media as “something that is out there but is not for us” (Finnish and international studies; conferences, seminars, etc.); lack of suitable cases major factor hindering adoption in B2B’s
• B2C (business-to-consumer) social media already has much research. However, B2B social media research is scarce and B2B differs significantly from B2C context considering the use and usefulness of social media.
• Key factors (both challenges and opportunities for social media) affecting B2B interaction
• fewer customers and more in depth customer relationships in B2B’s • gatekeeper persons between customers and B2B’s • IPR and information security issues also affect B2B interaction
between customers and partners
Research motivation 5
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• The literature survey revealed that the knowledge about social media use in business-to-business relations is currently fragmented into studies of individual tools and technologies with little focus on the big picture, and it is mainly based on individual cases. • The very few studies combining social media and B2B standpoint
have been mainly studied from a marketing perspective, and less attention placed on knowledge management.
• Moreover, empirical research is scarce in the area where social media, B2B relations and knowledge management intersect.
B2B
Customers
B2B
Partners / Suppliers
B2B Company
Research aims
• We wanted to study how industrial B2B companies perceive the potential, opportunities and challenges in using social media with customers and partners
• In addition, we also wanted to gain further understanding from the technological and organizational points of view of how business-to-business organizations currently utilize social media.
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Research design
• A questionnaire was designed to study social media potential and use in the above mentioned context utilizing found social media related literature, survey- type empirical social media studies, as well as several social media expert interviews.
• A sample of 2488 Finnish decision makers from the Federation of Finnish Technology Industries were surveyed. The survey was sent to managing directors of small and medium sized businesses and to business development, product development and communication managers in large companies
• A total of 151 responses were received to the Internet-based survey, of which 143 were from unique companies. The duplicate answers form same company were removed based on the completeness of the answers. The effective response rate was thus 6% (143/2488). From the answers of 143 unique companies, 125 companies represented fully (100%) business-to-business markets, which were chosen as the focus of this
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Functions of social media in customer interface of B2B companies
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1. Most actively used in marketing, communication and branding (~40 %)2. Improving customer service (21 %) and customer participation in R&D (9 %) less common, but
developing ways of using social media in B2B companies * percentages represent at least some use in the above functions or practices
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%
Customer participation in R&D
Gathering customer leads
Building thought leadership
Improving customer service
Discovering customer needs
Product demos
Sales support
Employer branding and recruitment
Communications
Marketing
Social tools used in customer interface of business-to-business companies
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0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
Blogs
Microblogs
Wikis
Discussion forums
Social office tools
Open or private communities
Social networking sites e.g. Facebook,LinkedIn
e.g. customersupport forums
e.g. Twitter,Yammer
Partner use of social media in B2B companies
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0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%
Induction
Transfer of tacit knowledge
Network management
Preserving information in networks
Change management and communication
Improving the efficiency of project work
Utilize expert know-how and reduce workload
Sharing best practices
Project communication
General communication
Communication and collaboration
1. Social media use in communicating and collaborating with partners (¼ of B2B companies), but2. less than 15 % of the survey B2B companies use social media in knowledge management with their
partners
Perceived potential of social media use with customer and partners
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0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
Gathering customer leads
Building thought leadership
Customer participation in R&D
Discovering customer needs
Improving customer service
Product demos
Sales support
Marketing
Communications
Employer branding and recruitment
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Transfer of tacit knowledge
Change management and communication
Induction
Preserving information in networks
Network management
Utilize expert know-how and reduce workload
Improving the efficiency of project work
Sharing best practices
Project communication
Communication and collaboration
General communication
Conclusions
• Concerning the experienced potential in the customer interface, six studied items out of ten had a perceived potential of more than 20%. The studied B2B’s seemed to perceive clearly a larger potential in the customer interface than in the partner interface, while none of the studied eleven partner-related items were perceived very important by more than 20%
• Currently, only a very minor part of studied B2B’s social media used social media very actively. The partner-oriented use was even less active. Both the current use and the seen potential seemed to be clearly higher in the customer interface than in partner use.
• Our study discovered several potential factors at least partly explaining the limited use: the most common reasons for not using social media were: a) other projects being more important, b) and the companies not being able to measure or assess the benefits for business, c) lack of good case studies, d) lack of understanding the possibilities, and e) lack of resources
• To increase social media use in B2B context, at least the above-mentioned most important social media adoption barriers should be addressed in companies, and academic research should be carried out to produce a more systematically organized, more holistic and less fragmented picture of the above issues.
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