Individual Assignment On

Remote Collaboration Tools & Social Media Turning into Commercial Channels

By Gaurav Mani Diwakar PGDM, Sec A Roll No -11DM050

8. Remote Collaboration Tools :

Increasing productivity by saving money and time and limiting the Carbon footprint is a must for every company to survive in the contemporary business world of cut throat competition. Adaptation of Remote Collaboration (RC) Tools can help companies to achieve this. Basically, RC Tools are a group of ICT based tools and services which can help individuals sitting at multiple locations to collaborate. It includes low bandwidth services like email/chat to high bandwidth tools like video conferencing. The motto of the integration of RC Tools is making it possible to be there without physically being there. The World Economic Forum has successfully implemented RC Tools to take Davos Forum to a much wider audience. Companies around the world are using RC Tools to make their business even more effective. RC is an interdisciplinary field covering humanities to management to high-end technology like Artificial Intelligence. The model of RC may be seen as 3C- Classification model. 3C includes Communication, Coordination, and Collaboration. RC combines various applications to facilitate a team to complete its team goals. RC makes it possible for a team to collaborate through synchronous participation from different locations by using various hardware and software. The possibility of Real Time connectivity among team members at different locations helps a team to complete its goal. Communication is vital for a team to complete its goal. RC facilitates seamless communication among team members through email, chat, and video conferencing. The communication is further enriched by the facility to make a record of proceedings. A group of standards, protocols, and applications are available to make it possible. According to the size of meeting, RC Tools provides two modes of operation. First is peer-topeer meeting (Two-way Communication) which helps organizer and participants to communicate and jointly edit documents. Second is Webinars which is basically a One-way Communication. It is used to transmit the conferences and may also include survey and feedback after the presentation by the speaker. Client software used in RC Tools are programmed in Java an interoperable software, and Flash- a popular tool for adding animation and interactivity. These tools are integrated over Voice over IP. Arrangement of meeting becomes quite easy with these tools. PSTN is also used for better quality and to minimize delays. At present, business world is using a hybrid of these two technologies to collaborate.

Standards ITU had recommended a standard for video conferencing in 1990s. The standard H.320 for ISDN Network resulted in interoperability among different brands and which eventually lowered the price of tools. Now a days, cost effective Internet Protocol, which is cost effective, is being used and similarly there are standard protocols available to make the interoperability possible. Different world organizations like ITU, World Web Consortium are involved in this. ITU has designed a Next Generation Network (NGN) standard which will make RC more reliable and will provide end-to-end QoS. Additionally, Software Development Kits and Application Programming Interface are available to help vendors to develop products of RC for individual needs. Standard has also developed for encryption technology to protect the data being communicated through RC tools. It is nothing short of a challenge for standard developers of RC Tools because developers have to guarantee about security and performance characteristics. Collaboration may happen among two people or among thousand of people as in Webinar. The sheer scale and the requirement of availability demands that tools must be hosted on multiple servers. To meet these requirements vendors offer software as a service (SaaS). Basically, SaaS is a model through which vendor develops a web-native software model and hosts it over the internet for its customers. Here, customers only pay for the use of the service, not for the software model. It helps to maintain the cost structure and to test the model at the initial stage. Market The market for RC Tools is huge according to an estimate by Gartner and expected to touch the figure of $ 11.5 Billion in 2011. Various companies are providing these tools which include companies primary involved in this arena, companies that have added RC in their basket of products, and companies which entered the segment after acquiring some core companies of RC. Plethora of companies are sourcing RC Tools from Google to IBM the high level of competition will help customers as prices will be flexible and cutting-edge technology will continue to evolve. Applications RC Tools helps individuals to overcome geographical limitations, and comes as a boon for businesses to share information with clients without any problem. Increased productivity, faster decision making, lower costs, reduced carbon footprints are some of benefits that an organization can get through RC Tools. Now, RC is increasingly being used in all successful business organizations. RC Tools can also help to overcome the digital divide among developing countries. The contemporary concern of climate change and global warming can be handled effectively through RC Tools. Reducing business travel can significantly reduce the CO2 emissions. The

latest concept of work from home can only be possible through RC Tools. Work from home will also come handy in tackling the CO2 emission as it not only reduces the travel time but also the requirement of office space is also reduced resulting in lower requirement for energy. Different studies have shown the usefulness of the implementation of RC Tools in tackling the problem of Global warming to an extent. ITU has recommended various options for developing countries to apply RC Tools as providing simplest solution for remote participation, enhancing live audio stream, arrangement for small meeting being held online, and further decentralizing meeting by using existing ITUs existing high performance network.

Conclusion:
Remote Collaboration (RC) Tools is used to increase the productivity of an organization through synchronous remote collaboration among team members located at different geographical locations. Various tools like email, chat, video conferencing, open documents, web casts come under the ambit of RC Tools. RC Tools has become very important these days because of its vital importance in reducing the carbon footprints as the use of these tools can limit the CO2 emissions. The recent upheaval around the world about Global Warming has made it mandatory for every company to reduce its carbon footprints. RC Tools help them to do so. RC Tools uses interdisciplinary approach to develop fitting standards, applications, and technology. The evolving technology has made it possible to use RC Tools without any problem. ITU and other organizations have developed Standards for vendors which make products of different vendors being interoperable. The presence of large companies in this area has resulted in the availability of RC Tools at lower price with better technology. All one needs is a terminal and internet connection to leverage the benefit of RC Tools. Though, RC Tools cant replace everything that an organization does like mandatory paper work. But, no one can negate the fact that it has become something that no organization can avoid.

52.Social Media Turning into Commercial Channels :

Consumers around the world are spending more and more time over social media like Facebook and Twitter. It helps them to remain connected with someone they trust. Companies are trying to leverage this new trend by making their presence felt over social media. People are spending more and more time on social media by interacting with their circles. It is natural that this interaction can affect their decision to buy a product. The opportunity for companies to attract prospective consumers is huge at social media. It is seen that shopping in the physical world has always been social. Now, companies are trying to use this basic feature of shopping through social media. Not only they can attract group of customers, but also can get quick feedback about their producs. The websites of all companies have Facebook Like and Twitter buttons. Buying products on social media platform is called social commerce. The market for social commerce is burgeoning and it is expected to touch $30 billion. It has emerged as a significant channel alongside traditional stores, telesales, and web. This emerging trend of social media is both a challenge and an opportunity for a company. Lots of companies are using this opportunity in their favor by selling products through the help of social media. They have created facebook page and Twitter feed to make a direct contact with their potential consumers. The new trend is not going to be stopped at just facebook like, but it is expected that in coming days the whole shopping will be completed over social media. The opportunity for companies is really huge. Early Developments: The latest trend in consumer behavior is the merger of e-commerce with social media. Transaction is being done within the platform rather than on e-commerce website. Though, the concept of social commerce is nascent, but some companies have successfully leveraged this. A notable example is 1-800-Flowers which has integrated its e-commerce platform directly on its Facebook fan page allowing consumers to make transaction without leaving Facebook. Dell has shown spectacular success by selling huge no. of products through its Twitter feeds. Various companies around the world have successfully used social commerce in their favor. Survey has also shown that a large section of consumers are ready to buy products over social media platform. This no. will only increase in future as social media companies are innovating to provide more privacy and security to their users. The merger of e-commerce with social media is

going to become even stronger with more opportunity for companies. Transaction over social media is expected to touch $30 billion in 2015. The service providers are also seeing billion dollar opportunity through social commerce. Impact : Opportunities for companies over social media are there at every moment along the path to purchase. Additionally, they can quickly estimate the success of their efforts. Awareness is the prime concern of companies. They are using social media to aware consumers about their products. This is a new environment for them to promote their brand and companies around the world are using various social media platforms for this. However, mere liking a page doesnt mean that a consumer will go to the extent of buying that product. A company has to prudently use the next stages like consideration, conversion, and loyalty to leverage this opportunity. Companies should entice customers to consider visiting their websites. At consideration stage companies should keep focus on generating leads and generating new ideas. To develop lead, companies have to innovate and develop new mechanisms for targeting, data gathering, and motivating potential consumers. Companies like Starbucks and Savings.com have successfully developed innovative mechanism to generate leads from potential customers. Generation of new ideas over social media platform may be termed as social ideation. Social ideation is quite valuable for a company since it originates from their potential customers. Companies can generate new ideas through communities of social media. Dells IdeaStorm is a success story in this case. The impact of social media is biggest at the next stage, conversion providing new buying proposition for consumers. Group buying and group gifting is a perfect example of new proposition. Since, users are connected on social media, they can group gift someone linked to them on the same platform. Social shopping is another buying proposition particularly for fashion products. It has been seen that teenagers seek the opinion of their peers for latest fashion trends. Marketing of events like music concerts can be successfully done on social media as the possibility of buying group ticket is there. Loyalty and service is another stage of social commerce. Companies want their customers to be loyal to their products. Social media can come handy here as it opens a new touch point for companies. Companies can also measure the success of their initiatives over social media. a socio-graphic data can be collected which comprising not only what individuals buy but also what their friends buy. This data can help companies at each stage of purchase path by influencing the consumer behavior.

Getting Started : Social media is both an opportunity and a challenge for companies. There are four imperatives for every company to master this new arena 1. The social commerce is evolving at the fast pace. Now, it is imperative for companies to make their presence felt at social media platforms. Even if they are not matured enough for social commerce, but they need to jump quickly and try to learn by doing. 2. Companies need to develop a strategy and make their wish-list. According to this list, they need to provide a flexible platform to gather useful data about potential consumers. 3. Companies need to mine socio-graphic data to understand the flavor of their consumers. They can use various methods like survey to do this. 4. Companies need to understand the position of social media in their broader multi-channel strategy and determine the impact of social media over other channels. Then, they need to integrate social commerce to their multi-channel strategy.

Conclusion:
Social media has become an integral part of consumers life around the world. The amount of time that consumers are spending over various social media is enormous. Being linked to someone they trust, the impact of social media over their choice is also enormous. They are going to the extent of buying products directly on social media platforms. This new trend can be seen as a powerful extension of e-commerce. For companies the social commerce is an opportunity and also a challenge. They are required to make effective strategy to leverage this new channel. Some companies have successfully leveraged social commerce in their favor. The impact of social media is evident at all stages along the path of purchase. Companies can make their potential customers aware about their brands; generate new leads and develop new ideas, provide new buying proposition to consumers, ensure loyalty and service, and then can even measure the success of their initiative in little time. They can also develop a socio-graph which will help them to get huge amount of data about consumer behavior. There are some imperatives that companies must follow to fully leverage this new powerful marketing channel. These are making quick presence on social media, developing innovative strategy to get useful data, defining the customer expectations, and integrating social commerce with their overall multi-channel strategy.