Social Software: Companies Prefer Online Communities

About one third of the companies in the economic sector IT-related service providers use at least one social software application for (their) internal or external communication with their customers or employees. Possible applications range from discussion forums to online communities, wikis or blogs.

IT-related service providers primarily use online communities. IT-related service providers are characterised by their high ICT intensity and produce about eight per cent of the gross value in Germany. About 20 per cent of the companies working with social software use online communities. These are the findings of a business survey conducted by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim in cooperation with Creditreform, Neuss. The survey was conducted in March 2008 among service providers of the information society (see details at end of press release).

Discussion forums rank second among the preferred social software applications in this economic sector (about 15 per cent). Approximately ten per cent of the companies use wikis or collaboration platforms. Blogs and other social software applications are fairly rarely used in the entire economic sector.

Analysing the two subsectors, service providers in Information and Communications Technology (software providers, IT services, ICT-specialized trade and telecommunication services) as well as knowledge-intensive service providers (tax consultancy and accounting, business consultancy, architectural offices, engineering services, research and development and advertising) results in a mixed picture. Approximately 45 per cent of the ICT service providers use at least one social software application, compared to only 29 per cent of the knowledge-intensive service providers. Both rely mostly on online communities. However, in contrast to those knowledge-intensive service providers who use discussion forums in the second place, ICT service providers tend to work with wikis and collaboration platforms.

IT-related service providers mainly use social software for external communications (about 50 per cent), followed by internal knowledge exchange (about 45 per cent) and internal communications (about 42 per cent). Approximately 39 per cent use social software in order to establish and maintain customer relations. Project coordination with collaboration partners or freelancers (about 26 per cent), a more efficient structure of business processes (about 22 per cent), the stimulation of innovation (about 21 per cent), and product marketing (about 11 per cent) appear to play a a rather subordinate role in social software usage. Regarding the question which field is the most important for social software usage, the IT-related service providers’ opinions are divided. While ICT service providers use social software mainly for internal communication purposes (about 56 per cent), knowledge-intensive service providers prefer social software applications for external communications (about 53 per cent).

The ZEW/Creditreform business survey

About 1000 companies participate in the quarterly survey. The economic sector IT-related service providers consist of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) service providers (enterprises of the branches software and IT services, ICT-specialized trade and telecommunication services) and knowledge-intensive service providers (tax consultancy and accounting, business consultancy, architectural offices, engineering services, research and development and advertising). An overview of the ZEW/Creditreform business survey is provided on the ZEW project site. For further information in German language only, please consult our homepage at www.zew.de/dienstleister.

Contact

Dr. Jenny Meyer, E-mail: meyer@zew.de