IBM enters the environment of 'social business' with one... - Europa Press

MADRID, 14 Sep. (Portaltic/EP)-

IBM Connections 4 tabled by the IBM Spain, Ricardo Miguez del Olmo, director of collaboration solutions. The company's social software platform is a conglomerate of social tools that bring the multinational and its customers closer to promising environment 'social business'.

This Friday, Miguez del Olmo has demonstrated the importance that the incorporation of social networks to the company's strategy. Since, as has been explained, "technology has reinvented the rules of the game" and enterprises must adapt to them with platforms such as IBM Connections.

IBM has a new platform of social software that integrates analysis tools that allow the user to know the activity generated in their social networks in real time and in an integrated manner.

IBM Connections 4 incorporates both analytical capabilities and real-time tracking information and faster collaboration networks, either in the company's own facilities, through mobile devices - such as 'smartphones' or 'tablets '- or in the cloud (IBM SmartCloud).

Thanks to this social software platform companies can integrate and analyze massive amounts of information generated by people, devices or sensors and align this knowledge to your business to make more accurate business decisions and processes more agile way.

The design of Connections 4 is characterized by "a minimalist look reminiscent of other social tools" such as Facebook or LinkedIn.

   The IBM social platform offers a personalized service, hence, Connections present a space dedicated to the user, the profile information. This has, as usual, with a picture of the user, your contact information and a field of labelling. The latter has been noted by Olmo Míguez as "rule number one of all social network" already that, according to the IBM Spain solution director in social networks "must be labelled" to be able to position in the network.

The most relevant factor by which you can link to 4 Connections with other social network is Facebook is the introduction of a wall of conversation. This space is necessary above all to that when a user receives a question that must be answered, are various people will benefit from the answer. As well as it will also strengthen the idea that "four heads think more than one", according to Ricardo Miguez del Olmo.

The recommendation of "people you may know" appearing in the social network of Facebook, as well as in others such as LinkedIn, will be one of the tools which will have Connections. In this case, the utility is intended for professional use, in such a way that the user can connect with other professionals to work in the future.

The communities in which the user enrolls will serve ultimately to "transfer knowledge from generation to generation". These words define Miguez del Olmo one of the main objectives of Connections: help translate knowledge from the previous generations of professionals.

The need to use 4 Connections as a transmitter of knowledge is because that take longer in the company about 50 percent retire from one moment to another. And, according to del Olmo Miguez, everything they have learned not to be missed, but that should be moved to future generations.

   Connections also brings with it a multimedia gallery, Media Gallery, with which you can share both videos and images. Likewise, this conglomeration of social tools will also offer the possibility to organize events with the calendar function, cross views in Forums, recourse to Bookmarks or upload files from the Files option.

With this social platform companies will have the possibility of discovering typical patterns, not only to react quickly to changes, but also to make future predictions. All from the Connections which are grouped into features: calendar, wikis, blogs, email and workflow activity - with the "latest news" section.

   Activity flows will be allowing any Department of the company employees access information structured and unstructured, as 'feeds' of Twitter, Facebook, weather, videos, log files publications, SAP applications or documents for electronic signature and use it as part of their daily work experience.

The demand for corporate platform for IBM social networking is even higher among companies and industries that operate in more regulated markets. In fact, 41 percent of the companies that have participated in the beta version of IBM Connections 4 tests are banking institutions, financial and health care.

This project of adoption of 'social business' companies by IBM led the company to extend its support centers to provide service to their customers in Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Located in Manila, Philippines and Sao Paolo (Brazil), these centres will favour a rapid adoption of the 'social business' tools in these growth markets. Both join the other centres already present in North America, Dublin, Japan, China and India.

The need of this social implementation in the company originates from the growth of social media. This phenomenon is taking those who targeted the companies - from directors 'marketing' to HR directors or directors of technology - to analyze how to create opportunities that promote the transformation of the company through the use of social technologies.

According to Forrester Research, is expected that the corporate social applications market opportunity to grow at a rate of 61 per cent throughout the next 2016.

Miguez del Olmo has also expressed the need to innovate both in the external Department - optimizing the workforce - the company and the internal -improving relations with customers. Since, if both are positioned at the same pace, a company with great operational efficiency will be achieved.

According to the study published by IDC, the market for social enterprise platforms will come to move more than 4,500 million dollars (3.451 billion euros) in 2016, experiencing a growth of 43 percent over the next four years. And in this social world is found IBM, considered the social software world market leader for the third consecutive year.