'Use social media to customize user experience and grow your business'
"Social media is going to become a powerful reality in the coming days. It will be embraced by all - entrepreneurs, organizations and industry leaders. Every sector, including education, will embrace it and leverage it," declared Sudhir Subbaraman, Vice President, Consulting Services and Head of Products, CGI, at the Research Forum on Social Media, Big Data & Innovation on Saturday (March 15) at IIM Bangalore.
According to Sudhir, IT industry is at a crossroads. "Every 10 years, the IT industry sees a dramatic shift. From mainframe we moved to Windows to modern architecture. Tomorrow is going to be about social media and big data, and how companies leverage social media to create great customer experience grow business."
Observing that the world of tomorrow is a customized world, he gave the example of Barnes & Noble, a book chain in the US, and the way it was impacted by the entry of Amazon. "Netflix too changed the entire movie watching business," he said, warning that those who do not comprehend the customization of user experience will get left behind.
He spoke of the need for companies to leverage social media, cloud and big data to enrich customer experience.
Touching upon the explosion in e-commerce, emphasizing the adoption of technology in government agencies and highlighting the power of social media in creating a customized, individualized experience, Sudhir said companies had to adopt or perish.
Prof. Pratyush Bharati, Fulbright Senior Researcher and Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Boston, introduced the speakers and led the discussions.
"Social media has helped us acquire, retain and propagate knowledge at Unisys," said LNV Samy, Vice President - Engineering, Unisys, describing Unisys's engagement with social media - an initiative, which he said, the company had launched nearly two years ago. He also shared the road map for the future of the organization's unified social media business.
Declaring that Unisys's unified social media business had proved a big draw with young employees as well as customers, he explained: "Our social media business focuses on 4 areas - presence (real time and virtual) & communication; it helps in collaboration within the workplace; it builds a unique culture to empower employees; and it integrates employees."
He said, "The challenge was to get all our employees - 25,000 - across geographies to become part of this change. It took us a year to get everyone on board. Today, everyone - including customers and partners - has been integrated."
According to him, every employee has his/ her profile and networks on social media. "For instance, when I join the organization, my profile goes up - my networks, the communities that I am part of and the domains I am interested in are up there for people to know me and know my areas of expertise. I too can tap into colleagues' expertise; I can collaborate with people with similar interests," he said.
Samy declared that knowledge sharing was one of the most useful takeaways of setting up organic online communities. "We use social media to float ideas on innovation; we use it to apply innovation internally to see how we can add innovations to the solutions that we provide to our customers. We have found that applied innovation has grown our new business considerably."
Rajat Kumar, MD and CEO, Veda Semantics, said: "It is critical to put knowledge in a repository that can be pulled out when required. No one has the time anymore to search for the needle in the haystack. Big data analytics makes knowledge customisable."
Describing Veda Semantics adoption of social media, he said it had provided the 'last mile connectivity' at his organization.
Earlier in the day, Prof. N M Agrawal, in his welcome address thanked the NHRD, the Knowledge Community and NASSCOM for supporting the initiative taken by the Centre for Software & IT Management (CSITM) at IIM Bangalore in hosting the Research Forum.
"The Centre for Software & IT Management - a centre for excellence at IIMB - works on creating domain expertise in IT; the Centre started the PGSEM programme which has given 1500 leaders to the industry so far. We create relevant and valid knowledge for the industry that then works with that knowledge. CSITM creates a community that creates practices for the industry. The Research Forum on Social Media is another example of our work at CSITM - using technology to improve productivity of the organization and society," he said.
Dr Devanath Tirupati, Director Incharge, IIMB, said: "The theme of the Research Forum reflects the future of the IT industry - social media, big data and innovation are recognised are key ingredients for firms that are on the path of growth." He said there was scope for academics to work in the three areas so that organizations benefit from such research.
The half-day Research Forum saw a full house at IIM Bangalore. Industry experts, academics and students participated in the workshop.
'Use social media to customize user experience and grow your business'
"Social media is going to become a powerful reality in the coming days. It will be embraced by all - entrepreneurs, organizations and industry leaders. Every sector, including education, will embrace it and leverage it," declared Sudhir Subbaraman, Vice President, Consulting Services and Head of Products, CGI, at the Research Forum on Social Media, Big Data & Innovation on Saturday (March 15) at IIM Bangalore.
According to Sudhir, IT industry is at a crossroads. "Every 10 years, the IT industry sees a dramatic shift. From mainframe we moved to Windows to modern architecture. Tomorrow is going to be about social media and big data, and how companies leverage social media to create great customer experience grow business."
Observing that the world of tomorrow is a customized world, he gave the example of Barnes & Noble, a book chain in the US, and the way it was impacted by the entry of Amazon. "Netflix too changed the entire movie watching business," he said, warning that those who do not comprehend the customization of user experience will get left behind.
He spoke of the need for companies to leverage social media, cloud and big data to enrich customer experience.
Touching upon the explosion in e-commerce, emphasizing the adoption of technology in government agencies and highlighting the power of social media in creating a customized, individualized experience, Sudhir said companies had to adopt or perish.
Prof. Pratyush Bharati, Fulbright Senior Researcher and Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Boston, introduced the speakers and led the discussions.
"Social media has helped us acquire, retain and propagate knowledge at Unisys," said LNV Samy, Vice President - Engineering, Unisys, describing Unisys's engagement with social media - an initiative, which he said, the company had launched nearly two years ago. He also shared the road map for the future of the organization's unified social media business.
Declaring that Unisys's unified social media business had proved a big draw with young employees as well as customers, he explained: "Our social media business focuses on 4 areas - presence (real time and virtual) & communication; it helps in collaboration within the workplace; it builds a unique culture to empower employees; and it integrates employees."
He said, "The challenge was to get all our employees - 25,000 - across geographies to become part of this change. It took us a year to get everyone on board. Today, everyone - including customers and partners - has been integrated."
According to him, every employee has his/ her profile and networks on social media. "For instance, when I join the organization, my profile goes up - my networks, the communities that I am part of and the domains I am interested in are up there for people to know me and know my areas of expertise. I too can tap into colleagues' expertise; I can collaborate with people with similar interests," he said.
Samy declared that knowledge sharing was one of the most useful takeaways of setting up organic online communities. "We use social media to float ideas on innovation; we use it to apply innovation internally to see how we can add innovations to the solutions that we provide to our customers. We have found that applied innovation has grown our new business considerably."
Rajat Kumar, MD and CEO, Veda Semantics, said: "It is critical to put knowledge in a repository that can be pulled out when required. No one has the time anymore to search for the needle in the haystack. Big data analytics makes knowledge customisable."
Describing Veda Semantics adoption of social media, he said it had provided the 'last mile connectivity' at his organization.
Earlier in the day, Prof. N M Agrawal, in his welcome address thanked the NHRD, the Knowledge Community and NASSCOM for supporting the initiative taken by the Centre for Software & IT Management (CSITM) at IIM Bangalore in hosting the Research Forum.
"The Centre for Software & IT Management - a centre for excellence at IIMB - works on creating domain expertise in IT; the Centre started the PGSEM programme which has given 1500 leaders to the industry so far. We create relevant and valid knowledge for the industry that then works with that knowledge. CSITM creates a community that creates practices for the industry. The Research Forum on Social Media is another example of our work at CSITM - using technology to improve productivity of the organization and society," he said.
Dr Devanath Tirupati, Director Incharge, IIMB, said: "The theme of the Research Forum reflects the future of the IT industry - social media, big data and innovation are recognised are key ingredients for firms that are on the path of growth." He said there was scope for academics to work in the three areas so that organizations benefit from such research.
The half-day Research Forum saw a full house at IIM Bangalore. Industry experts, academics and students participated in the workshop.