Social technologies and collaboration software are applications that are focused on communication and collaboration between people. This includes people-centric skills management systems like Kwykli.
The McKinsey report on Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies concludes that social technologies and collaboration software have the potential to increase productivity of knowledge workers by staggering numbers.
The highest and easiest to capture potential can be found in the Professional Services industry. However, to capture the full value of social technologies, it is not sufficient to just introduce a few applications. It must also be accompanied by management innovations to produce real gains. New processes and a new culture must be established.
Huge Potential for Increase in Productivity
Knowledge workers spend approximately 28 hours each week writing e-mails, searching for information and collaborating internally. Time which is often spent in an inefficient manner.
“Perhaps most intriguingly, companies are beginning to find that social technologies have enormous potential to raise the productivity of knowledge workers”
According to McKinsey's research, social technologies, when used within and across enterprises, have the potential to raise the productivity of the high-skill knowledge workers that are critical to performance and growth in the 21st century by 20 to 25 percent.
Usability is a Key Success Factor
According to their investigation, social technologies promise to extend the capabilities of high-skill workers (who are increasingly in short supply) by streamlining communication and collaboration, lowering barriers between functional silos, and even redrawing the boundaries of the enterprise to bring in additional knowledge and expertise in “extended networked enterprises.”
When implemented properly, skills management systems like Kwykli can help unlock this huge potential by speeding up access to co-worker's knowledge and tearing down knowledge silos.
However, poorly implemented systems without a focus on user experience will hardly be able to realize this value. As McKinsey stated, individuals are the first and most important beneficiaries of social technologies. Unless individuals receive value for using social technologies, they won’t use these technologies, and none of the other forms of value can be created.
When implementing social technologies and collaboration software in general and skill management systems in particular, it is thus important to focus on the end-users' experience and how it makes their daily life easier.
Read Full Report
To read the full executive summary of the report visit Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies .
