ROI

What is ROI? It basically means  return on investment. Return on Investment means different things to different people. To some, ROI must achieved to warrant investment. For others, ROI is used as a  way to coax people to make the business case for a proposal. Some treat ROI as a formula, others as a philosophy. This post will discuss some examples of how ROI can be calculated for Enterprise 2.0 projects through employee engagement, turnover and sales.

Measurements are going to be required to help bring about a more successful transition and wider adoption of Enterprise 2.0 into an organization. Here are some ways of how organizations success can be measured.

1) Employee engagement

Employees using enterprise social media tools  in the workplace are more engaged than those employees who do not use these tools. Why? Employees are more engaged because they become part of something larger than themselves and their immediate departments.   Something large being the social media network.

How to Measure employee engagement? There are companies who generally conduct annual/monthly surveys to gauge the levels of enterprise work force engagement. Another way is to measure by viewing an employee’s usage of the enterprise social software.  By doing this you can have a better view of their engagement with social media.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2) Turnover

Employee turnover is another way of measuring ROI. Employees that utilise activity streams in the workplace are less likely to turn over than those that do not use activity streams.  In addition to increasing employee engagement, enterprise social media tools help employees onboard more quickly, it helps them find the information they need to be successful, and help them receive real time feedback from fellow coworkers – all of which lead to better employee retention.

So how can turnover be measure? Just Like employee engagement, turnover can be measured by viewing an employee’s usage enterprise social media tools. Another alternative could be,  obtaining data concerning the employee usage of the community as well as data that could have an impact on turnover rates such as tenure, salary, and market conditions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3)  Sales

How can sales aid  ROI?  Monitoring the level of sales within an organisation is another way of measuring how ROI can be calculated through the use of social media platforms. Actually you could say social media platforms provide employees with real-time information, providing them with key business insights thus enabling them to react faster to product availabilty, customer issues, current news on competitors, and other data that will help employees to be successful. So how do you measure sales? Lets look at 4 ways of measuring sales:

How to measure sales:

1. Obtain the sales results for each of your sales team members.

2. Gather data to reflect each person’s usage of the enterprise social network.

3. Account for other factors that could have impacted sales results.

4. Analyze the relationship between the use of enterprise social tools and sales results.

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Some interesting links:

http://www.pamorama.net/2010/12/07/how-to-calculate-the-roi-of-enterprise-social-media/#.UEmo2LJlSSo

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/social-business/social-enterprise-roi-measuring-the-immeasurable-015149.php