An explosion in the number of new mobile devices coupled with a
surge in adoption of new social media platforms is posing unique
security challenges for CIOs. Should CIOs adopt the familiar
strategy of block and deny, or should they embrace social media and
drive usage? To discuss the relevance and impact of social media to
the overall business, and how CIOs must handle social media,
InformationWeek’s Srikanth RP caught up
with Arun Sundararajan, NEC Faculty Fellow and Associate
Professor at New York University’s Stern School of
Business.
Professor Sundararajan will be at the Indian School of Business
Hyderabad on February 3rd and 4th 2012 as a keynote speaker for
their industry-academia conference on Digital Marketing
Strategies.
Some edited excerpts from the interview:
Does social media make ‘IT savvy’ more or less
important to an organization and its leadership team?
An organization that better understands the importance of IT has an
advantage in grasping the strategic importance of social
media. As a consequence, organizations that are leaders in IT
or use IT effectively will also be able to better anticipate and
take advantage of changes in social media. When an organization is
IT savvy, it takes a broader view. With social media, IT-savvy
organizations have an opportunity to broaden the scope of
IT’s impact – much more than what the traditional IT
function influences. Unlike historical enterprise IT, where
consumers were more of an afterthought, social media is an example
of the opposite trend – the consumerization of IT
—wherein adoption is not based on the product release cycles
of big organizations, but is driven by consumers and then adapted
for business use. As IT gets consumerized, the pace of change
is more rapid and unpredictable, thus IT savvy becomes even more
critical.
As the adoption of social media grows, should CIOs sit on
the sidelines, or should they make social media as part of their
charter?
CIOs must definitely not sit on the sidelines, but instead use
social media to increase their presence in the executive
conversation. IT is central to the organization, and if CIOs show
that they create a comprehensive framework for governing social
media data within their own organization, they can put their
organizations in a vantage position. A smart CIO will encourage and
facilitate social media in the organization, thereby enhancing his
or her value to the organization. Instead of trying to suppress
social media at the fringes, CIOs must embrace it, expand their
charter to include it, and show their organizations how to use it
to create business opportunities for their organizations, thus
further strengthening their role as a bridge between IT and the
business side.
What is the strategic importance of social media and the
role of the CIO, CMO and the CEO in articulating it?
Until recently, communication between an enterprise and the
consumer has been largely one way, from the firm to the consumer.
Social media is changing this by opening up a new conversation with
consumers, and taking the role of the firm beyond articulating
product features, or telling people about your R&D or
manufacturing capabilities. Hence, organizations have to make the
transition from “broadcasting” to being the mediators
of a conversation. Technologically savvy CIOs have a natural
advantage in spotting trends and grasping the nuances of social
media,but organizations still need to make sure their
CMO’s are technologically geared up, since marketing and
communications strategy needs to be interwoven carefully with the
use of this new medium.
How does social media change the online-offline
mix?
In my view, social media doesn’t always make the online
medium more important. Sure, a large percentage of
communication is done online, but the offline experience is often
brought online by social media. So the online experience has to be
matched by a quality offline experience. For example, if a company
provides poor quality customer service offline, then it is bound to
be amplified by social media reactions, spreading across the
customer base rather than being isolated to one person. Thus,
CMO’s must be appreciative of customer experiences across
channels, and must adopt a strategy of participating in and
managing instead of suppressing social media reactions.
How does social media alter brand management?
The importance of brand can be enhanced or reduced by social media.
If a firm builds a social media presence around its brand, this can
enhance the importance of brand tremendously. We have several
examples where social media fans have created communities of their
favorite brands. On the other hand, more decentralized social media
communities can also reduce the importance of brand, since
consumers are better able to make choices based on the actual
experience of a particular product or service by others.