I've been looking for a way to incorporate social media tools into day to day business for a long time. I've read about Twitter being used to update users of network incidents and outages, "we're aware of this issue and we're working on it". I've been keen not to force social media tools upon the business for the sake of it, but to introduce them because there's a need and therefore a willingness to use them.
Within Orange, we work hard to support the complex multi country deal teams and we collaborate quickly across teams and support the business. As a result the cross function teams arrange frequent team calls to share knowledge and use sharepoint to store frequently used documents, FAQ's and guides. But those calls only happen once a month so a forum to continue to share ideas and questions was requested.
We could have chosen a mailing list, or Sharepoint even, but a group within Yammer was suggested and we've started to run with it. The private group within Yammer allows questions, issues and idea's to be shared (non-urgent obviously) and the niche community continues to communicate outside the monthly calls.
So social media is starting to filter into our day to day business not through pressure to use it but through the need to use it.
Rob is the Group Head for Telecoms Sourcing for Western Europe and the Nordics and manages a team providing all aspects of Telecoms sourcing to Orange Business. Rob owns the Commercial relationship with major carriers across Europe on behalf of Orange Business. Cost reduction, re-negotiation, competitiveness and subsequent impact on country P&L are key activities that Rob drives across Western Europe.