Online Business Communities and the Real World

We recently completed a qualitative market research study that looked at current practices and plans among companies that are building online business communities. Our goal wasn’t to understand “how many” but rather “what are they doing.”  We wanted to understand the goals of these companies…and, more importantly, what impact the communities are having on the companies themselves.

I am intrigued by what we learned, because the experimentation with Web 2.0 technologies is much broader than what I had imagined to be the case.  Companies across a wide spectrum of industries are experimenting with internal and external communities and, for the most part, achieving great results.

Most companies started internally, focusing on improved collaboration among employees.  Because their experience has been so positive, these same companies have been more willing to experiment externally.  There is more confidence that external communities are both possible and necessary – internal experimentation is definitely driving a lot of companies to take the next step.  Interestingly, businesses are beginning to perceive that they need to build online communities either as a differentiator or to stay competitive.  In other words, they think this is critical for future success.

Some of the most intriguing results are the applications for external communities, i.e. what companies are actually using communities to do.  Companies are creatively approaching online communities, focusing on their core business and using Web 2.0 technologies to make them more competitive or more productive in very concrete areas. 

Although there is a wide variety of communities in place, the applications are clustered in three key categories:  transforming customer relationships, product innovation, and collaboration across external groups.  You can download the summary of our research right here on our portal and read more details about what we learned. 

Sometimes what you don’t find is intriguing too.  We aren’t yet seeing systematic community building for customer service innovations.  I can think of a lot of industries that could really use that kind of innovation.  Getting customers to assist other customers?  That’s even better than having them do your marketing for you!  Maybe that trend is yet to come….