Before we can venture to explore how enterprise social networking can help in all the four major business functions, it will be important for us to brief acquaint ourselves with the said 'business functions.' Traditionally speaking, a business has four major functions. The first of those is the operations/production function. This concerns itself with the actual creation of the product that the organization deals with (whether that be a tangible product, or a service). In the case of a factory, this is where you would find the machine operators, floor supervisors and so on. In the case of a law firm, this is where you would find the lawyers and their clerks. The second one is the accounting/finance function. This deals with the management of the organization's money. In many businesses, the money soon or later accumulates to a point where just keeping track of it becomes a job in itself; this being the job of the finance/accounting function. Then there is the administrative function, which concerns itself with administration issues and human resource management. Finally, there is the marketing function, which concerns itself with seeing to it that the products made by the operations function are successfully pushed into the market and maintained there. Our brief, for this discussion, is to explore the ways in which enterprise social networking can help in all the four major business functions. Starting with the production/operations function, we see enterprise social networking having the potential to bring about good collaboration between the various people involved in an organization's productive operations. Through a well integrated enterprise social networking framework, it is possible to have the R&D (research and development) people constantly updating the people in the production lines with news on what they are coming up with, whilst also seeking the production line people's views on the practicality of their ideas. The end result would potentially be that of a much better product than what the respective departments would come up with working in isolation. Turning to the accounting/finance function, we see enterprise social networking having the potential to give the 'bean counters' an opportunity to tap all the other members of the organization for ideas on prudent (but painless) cost management and revenue maximization measures. There are many organizations where there used to be a lot of resentment, before the advent of systems through which the finance department actors could directly interact with people in other departments. This resentment used to arise out of the fact that people in other sections would feel that the 'bean counters,' using tier 'expertise' were making decisions that directly impacted on them without seeking their input. And often, it was felt that the painful decisions made did not even result in any significant cost savings or revenue raises. The feeling was with more consultative effort (now possible through enterprise social networking), more effective yet less painful financial management decisions could be made. Moving onto the administrative function, we see enterprise social networking having the potential to provide that direct (unmediated) link between the rank and file employees and their managers (including top management). This is a link that was always missing, and which often bred a lot of misunderstandings and resentment. And finally, moving onto marketing, we see enterprise social networking having the potential to help marketers create 'buzz' around their products, whilst also getting unmediated buyer opinions that would help them 'improve their game,' thus taking their organizations to higher levels of success.
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