4 case study questions
Systems
SUMMARY
ESSENTIALS OF Management Information Systems 14e KENNETH C. LAUDON AND JANE P. LAUDON
CHAPTER 2 GLOBAL E-BUSINESS AND COLLABORATION
CASE 2 CEMEX: Becoming a Social Business
(a) How it Works: Greenwell Couture URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZEVCab_s3E; L=5:53
(b) CEMEX URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3WbmUVLO-4; L=2:55
IBM Social Business tools empower different types of businesses to become more social and collaborative. Find out how.
CASE As the world continues its movement towards all things social, businesses have followed suit. Modern businesses can use social networking platforms to engage employees, custom-ers, and suppliers and to deepen interactions between these groups within the firm. The conversations that happen on social media represent opportunities to gain information, deepen relationships, and improve all areas of a business. Some of the many applications of social business include crowdsourcing, blogs, wikis, and shared workspaces. Many busi-nesses have also opted to create company-wide social networks where its employees can share information, find other employees with the information they need, and contribute ideas.
For global companies, social business is critical to allow people from all parts of the world to connect and contribute to shared solutions together. IBM is a leading provider of tools that enable this kind of social business. In the first video, IBM portrays a fictitious clothing
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2 CHAPTER 2, CASE 2 CEMEX: BECOMING A SOCIAL BUSINESS
company (Greenwell Couture) making use of social business tools to strengthen its global brand and improve collaboration across the firm. Benefits include faster decision making, greater productivity, and improved customer service. IBM Global Business Services drives the shift in business culture and technology towards social business, IBM Connections encourages collaboration and provides a variety of ways to share media and information with colleagues, and IBM Exceptional Digital Experience Suite allows Greenwell to provide individualized social marketing offers to customers.
Although modern employees are increasingly comfortable with social media and social networking platforms, social business is still unlikely to take hold within a company without the necessary efforts to build a collaborative culture and instill business processes that make use of social tools. Senior management must ensure that the company’s employees consider collaboration and teamwork to be essential. Employees also need to engage with coworkers and customers in a way that doesn’t compromise the company or the brand. In the Greenwell video, the company’s hypothetical employees were active on social networks, but had minimal ability to connect to other coworkers within the company. Using IBM social business tools, Greenwell employees were able to make these connections. They also gained the ability to share stories and videos with their colleagues. As the video states, employees and customers turned into something more: advocates for the company and its brand.
The IBM tools also allowed different types of employees to their jobs more effectively with social technologies. Greenwell’s top fashion designers blog about the latest fashion trends, the human resources staff finds the best candidates for job openings more efficiently with IBM Workforce Solutions, and data analysts better understand sentiment towards the company on the part of both employees and customers via Cognos Insights and IBM Digital Analytics. Because Greenwell prides itself on customized service, its customers are highly engaged and loyal to the company. Maintaining this level of service is easier with IBM social media tools. Individual customer service queries can be answered more efficiently and accurately. The company can monitor social media platforms for any instances of negative feedback and respond as soon as possible to resolve the issue.
But what about real companies? Fictitious clothiers are one thing, but multinational manu- facturers with 47,000 employees over 50 countries are another. The latter describes Cemex, the third largest building materials company in the world. The Mexico-based company oper- ates cement plants, ready-mix-concrete facilities, quarries, distribution centers, and marine terminals, and generated over $32 billion in revenues in 2016. Founded in 1906, Cemex doesn’t seem like a perfect candidate for social business at first glance. But even Cemex has found major value in going social and improving collaboration.
Cemex used IBM social tools to create an internal social network available to Cemex employ- ees. Of its 47,000 employees, 17,000 had joined this network.
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3 CHAPTER 2, CASE 2 CEMEX: BECOMING A SOCIAL BUSINESS
VIDEO CASE QUESTIONS
Cemex used the network to allow employees across the globe to contribute to innova-tion initiatives and to form communities focused on individual tasks within the firm. Using the network, Cemex developed the first global brand of ready-mix cement. The network has also driven a host of other innovation initiatives. Although shifting the culture of the company towards collaboration and usage of the network was a challenge, Cemex officials consider the network to be a success. Social networking allows a big company to feel like a small company.
1. Why might social business be especially useful for global companies?
2. What were some of the benefits that IBM social tools can provide for businesses like the fictitious Greenwell Couture?
3. What made Cemex a good candidate for a company-wide social network?
4. What types of things can go wrong when changing the culture of an organization to be more social and collaborative?
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