Communications and social media offer post-recession hope

Jeremy Butt believes the recent recession created channel opportunities to transform customer businesses using tools such as Web 2.0

Butt: Difficulties have unveiled new opportunities for the channel in communications technology

We believe that companies must not overlook one of their most important resources – their employees. We also believe that many employees experienced changes to the way in which they work as a result of the recession.

However, some say that too many businesses are still traumatised by the recession and are failing to prepare for the future. The key recommendation is that companies need to transform themselves in ways that will help them return to health.

It is my view that communications are key to this transformation and that the channel can play a vital advisory role and help employees communicate effectively.

We believe that businesses could do more to make better and more efficient use of their communications environments. There is evidence that companies have generally been slow to respond to the communications needs of their employees, especially in finding ways to enable them to deal with recession-related pressures.

Intra-company communications have suffered, with no new policies or procedures adopted to address issues arising from the recession, or better guidance on external or internal communications. We believe that only a minority of workers have been offered additional training to communicate better with customers, colleagues and suppliers since the recession.

This suggests to me that businesses must revive and transform their communications environments, and that resellers can show them how to take the first step.

We have complete faith in our resellers, but when the stakes are especially high and the market is unforgiving, businesses of all sizes must capitalise on their existing strengths to stay competitive.

Turn customer strengths into competitive advantage by matching the technology to fit the business need, and converting it into a solution. One example of this is social media, which has become increasingly popular for its ease of use and flexibility over the last year or so in business.

I believe that employees now expect to be able to use social media applications at work, just as they would at home. Many businesses have been slow to respond – they may be still cautious about the viability and security of such applications – and the result has been that employees may feel less efficient or even unproductive at work compared to how they communicate in their social lives.

I think we all know that not adapting is not an option. Invest early in the tools that are going to keep your customer’s business agile and responsive, and the employees satisfied and productive.

There will always be new ways of communicating, and forward-thinking companies will jump on these trends. The trick is to use these trends to your customer’s advantage and make use of the knowledge and expertise available.

The downturn brought with it many woes, but also unveiled opportunities to improve what we have got.

Jeremy Butt is vice president of worldwide channels at Avaya