Generating social business value across the enterprise - 

The 2014 MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte social business study reveals three drivers of social business maturity�"and a strong connection between social business maturity and social’s value to the enterprise.

This year’s MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte global survey found clear evidence that companies across industries are creating value with social business.

A key finding is that social business value is a function of what we call social business maturity �" the breadth and sophistication of its initiatives.

In this year’s report, we detail the drivers of that maturity and how companies are using social business to transform their organizations and reap greater gains from their social business efforts.

The following are highlights of our findings:

Social Business Grows Deep Roots

Social business is perceived as important both today and in the future. After jumping from 52% in 2011 to 74% in 2012, 73% of this year’s survey respondents say that social business is important or somewhat important today. Nearly 90% see its importance on a three-year horizon.

Measurement sophistication is starting to prove its value. In our first survey, “do not measure” was the most common response to questions about social business measurement.

While more than half of the least socially mature companies in this year’s survey don’t measure their efforts, more than 90% of maturing companies actively do.

These organizations are using a battery of measures, such as operational and financial metrics, to connect social initiatives to business outcomes.

We also found a surprising common denominator among all companies, including the most socially mature: anecdotal evidence plays a major role in demonstrating the value of social business.

Social business is not just a B-to-C phenomenon. In our two most recent annual surveys, we found that social business is important to very similar levels of respondents from B-to-C (business-to-consumer) and B-to-B (business-to-business).

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WRITTEN BY: Gerald C. Kane, Doug Palmer, Anh Nguyen Phillips, David Kiron & Natasha Buckley