I have been doing a lot of reding lately about how companies have introduced web 2.0 into their business and the issues that they have come accross. Most seem to have the same types of adoption hurdles that are needed to be overcome. From what I have read I have formed my own opinons about what seems to be the three major issues with enterprise 2.0 adoption:
1. Fear of change
Many people fear change and this becomes especially revelant within the enterprise. incorporating new technologies into existing business processes can be met with resistance from employees and accommodates. Some even regard the switch to Enterprise 2.0 and a culture change within a business.
2. Losing ownership
The concept of creating a collaborative community can sometimes prove to be challenging to some. Personality types that desire to be the ‘head honcho’ especially can be resistant to passing on the ownership of roles to colleagues and others. shifting the responsibility to the whole rather than having the single opinion of a manager of IT department, this does prove to be confronting and can can tie in with the fear of change issue.
3. Privacy Issues
One of the concepts of web 2.0 especially is sharing information in ‘The Cloud’. Many people used to traditional communication tools such as email find this concept intimidating as they are putting themselves out there for everybody to see. Wiki’s, blogs and social networking all focus on sharing your opinions and creating networks between people by sharing information. Especially security conscious companies with confidential information can find it a challenge to maintain their privacy. In my opinion this is the biggest hurdle to overcome when adoption these technologies within the enterprise.
Forrester research produced some very interesting results lately regarding the adoption of E 2.0 within businesses. “90% of surveyed IT professionals and security decision makers reported that they are at the least “very concerned” about related threats and may have made the leap into these technologies without thinking about the security consequences.”
So what are some strategies to overcome these issues with adoption? Yuri Alkin has made some suggestions that I agree with. Knowing which enteprise 2.0 technologies are appropriate for your business is very important. Flooding a company with many new technologies that all do similar things or are unnecessary will be one the the easiest ways for employees to lose interest. He also suggested runing a pilot process to get initial feedback however I believe this should be expanded on by making the pilot an optional task for employees. Initially allowing the people who really want to help contribute, therefore creating a positive and productive community. This will then show the others the benefits and will encourage them to jump on the E2.0 wagon. Finally it is just as important to follow through with projects once they begin. Maintaining and adjusting to the needs of business as time progresses is very important because every business is different and the perfect enterprise solutions for a business can only be achieved over time after many cases of trial and error.
So what do you think are the main issues with Enterprise 2.0 adoption? what strategies can you suggest to help introduce new companies to the concept?
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