Delivering true business value

An increasing number of companies are implementing social computing software to deliver true business value. Andre Bonvanie, Director with NewsGator Technologies, discusses how Universal McCann (UM) has used social networking and RSS tools to remain a leader in the highly competitive media agency industry.

Universal McCann (UM) is a global media communications agency delivering the “Next Thing Now” to the world’s leading marketers and strategic thinkers. UM’s clients include Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil, and Johnson and Johnson. The company has 90 offices in 66 countries and over 2800 employees with headquarters in New York. UM provides a full spectrum of media services including media and communications planning, digital strategy consultation, analytics and economic modelling and research and consumer insight.

The competitive landscape in the media agency industry is fast-changing and highly competitive. This environment demands that UM’s employees have a finger on the pulse of what’s going on, not just in their respective markets and account groups, but globally across the industry.

Universal McCann turned to social computing because they had a highly distributed workforce. UM found that thinking and experiences were often siloed and that expertise and ideas from one office could not be shared easily with other offices. UM sought to use enterprise 2.0 and social computing technologies to greatly improve communication and the flow of information across its offices.

UM implemented an enterprise-class social computing solution (built with NewsGator Social Sites and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007) that integrated seamlessly with its technology infrastructure and security protocols. The solution provides UM with an online destination that facilitates collaboration and content sharing across the global UM network. The social computing platform integrates Web 2.0 concepts such as social networking, communities, RSS, and blogging in an intuitive, easy-to-use interface. The social computing platform also enables employees to discover colleagues and subject matter experts, form social networks, and build communities based on areas of interest, rather than geography or project teams.

Their solution includes social networks to simplify the discovery of colleagues and subject matter experts. These social networks automatically build profiles of users based on actions they perform within the portal. They also surface closest and recommended connections based on common RSS reading, community memberships, tagging, etc. Their solution also includes a communities feature that supports the ad hoc formation of groups to facilitate cross-geography and cross-team collaboration, information sharing, and communication around client projects, interests, or activities. Communities enable members to engage in rich discussions, share documents, track activity, and surface relevant, dynamic content.

What type of business value has UM achieved with their social computing solution?

The business results realised by UM include improved productivity and streamlined workflows, better collaboration and communication across the global UM network, and increased innovation. In addition, the company experienced lower technology complexity and support costs and improved compliance with corporate security and privacy policies. In the end, the solution really gave UM the ability to become a ‘smarter collective organisation, faster’ in order to better deliver the ‘Next Thing Now’ to their clients.

Andre Bonvanie leads NewsGator Technologies’ European office. NewsGator provides Social Computing solutions including NewsGator Enterprise Server and Social Sites. To learn more about how Social Computing can help your business, contact Andre at andreb@newsgator.com or +31 (20) 561-7038.