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Head honchos leverage on social networking sites for business
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 19 October 2010, 15:28 IST |
5 Comments
Bangalore: Is it possible to do business through social networking sites? We think that it's a stupid application that no business gets done there, but there are many of the business honchos disagree and point out business value. Many of the Bosses who previously banned or blocked social networking sites in office, are now realising that getting onto FB, Orkut, Twitter or even YouTube is actually a great way to connect with their younger, more wired colleagues.
Recently a CEO of a Mumbai-based pharma company who is in his late 40's was recently in a fix. For some weeks now, few of his younger colleagues have been urging him to open a Facebook account since they wanted to see him better networked. Finally the CEO appointed a personal assistant to open an account. He acknowledges the fact that it is helping him to 'learn' the language of the youth much faster and the sites are also giving him a platform to get their ideas across to their teams.
In recent times Head honchos started realizing that a small but growing network of individuals can now easily search your personal network for relevant business contacts. This may be as simple as entering a name of an individual you're seeking, or specifying a broad search for contacts within a specific industry. This ease of creating personal contacts and developing online business events makes the service much more efficient than the traditional (and often stilted) network mixer.
"A challenge that I find in this area is now most online business networks are currently free, the model will soon change to a subscription basis and in a country like ours it is going to be difficult to cop up with such a situation," said Gururaj Dabholkar, CEO of a Bangalore based start up company.
Currently, some senior managers are using the sites to pass on better-management nuggets or give mini pep-talks to staff, others are broadcasting their business plans and goals, and seeking mass feedback from employees. For some companies, social networking by the head honchos has become a full-fledged HR strategy to make the company Gen Next ready, at a time when the average working age in India is falling rapidly.
