Your ESN does not work – and here is why

Bottom-line is; whether you buy an off-the-shelf Enterprise Social Network (ESN) such as Yammer, Slack, or Workplace on a monthly subscription or you pay top-dollars to an IT-boutique for a highly customised product that fully aligns – today – with your organisation, the outcome will be pretty much the same: nothing.

Indeed, the Altimeter Group discovered that for more than half of all deployed social and collaborative networks, post the initial spike in adoption, usage typically falls to almost zero. These findings coincide with the overall conclusion of a research we conducted getting data from mid-to-large corporations globally* – namely, any ESN-product (whether off-the-shelf or highly customised) indeed stops being in synch with the business that adopted it as early as 6 months post implementation and as late as 12. In other words, any product quickly becomes obsolete and as a result ineffective and thus underused. And the reason for this is simple; the impact the accelerating pace of Change has onto any business.

In a former blogpost, I explained how succeeding with one’s ESN was indeed not about having the ‘best’ product. First, because ‘best’ clearly means different thing to different businesses. Second, and most importantly, because for it to be ‘best’ at all times the product surely needs to morph so as to continuously match the evolving needs of the business and its’ users. Our work with some of the world’s most successful companies has proven that fact over and over again. For one to be able to enjoy a continuous usage or even growth of one’s ESN, the product must transform as fast as the organisation itself adjusts its’ strategies, tweaks its’ model, matures its’ user-base, etc.

It is and will never be about the product per se. To believe otherwise would be to accept that there is a silver-bullet and clearly there is no such thing. The success of any social and collaborative work tool can only happen thanks to the service delivered by the ESN provider.

In my next post, I will unveil what we, at internalDesk, have demonstrated to be the 3 proven pillars of an ESN’s success. Follow me and us (internalDesk) on LinkedIn to make sure you don’t miss any content that could help you. You can also visit our site and enjoy its wealth of content including our globally praised video.

*Our qualitative research has involved in-depth discussions with a total of 188 executives in the field of Communications, Employee Engagement and HR. across industries, lines of business and countries. It was conducted from January 2014 to December 2016.

Arnaud Henneville is a co-founder at internalDesk

internalDesk is a communication software for companies that need a unique solution – not an average product. Each platform contains a set of different modules that can be changed according to the customer’s initial and ongoing needs. Why? Because one size does not fit all.