New Enterprise Social Survey Shows More than 40% Asian Information Workers Want More Access to Social Tools at Work

Hopewell Holdings enjoys real business value through better workplace collaboration with Microsoft Enterprise Social tools

HONG KONG, Sept. 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- In today's dynamic and hyper-connected world, social media channels have become a norm for people to connect in societies in Asia including Hong Kong; and not surprisingly, it is becoming more pervasive in the workplace. Asian information workers have not only brought about a "Bring Your Own Devices" trend, but also "Bring Your Own Service" trend into the workplace. Unveiled by a new Enterprise Social research commissioned by Microsoft, information workers in Asia Pacific today want more access to social tools at work despite some internal barriers, and workers are increasingly bypassing IT in order to get work done in their own terms using services that they would normally use on a personal level.

"Just as email accelerated the pace of business in the 90s, enterprise social will be the driver of greater agility and transformation in the 21st century workplace," said David Hooper, Information Worker Business Group Lead. "As we look ahead at how collaboration and communications continue to evolve, we believe that the tools people use today -- email, IM, voice, videoconferencing and social -- will come together and be deeply integrated into apps in ways that will speed collaboration and truly transform the way people work." 

New research shows information workers want more access to social tools at work

According to a recent Enterprise Social research study conducted for Microsoft by research firm Ipsos among 2,132 information workers across Asia Pacific, 58 percent of Asia Pacific employees report that social tools at work help increase their productivity, yet 37 percent feel that their companies underestimate the value of the tools, often restricting their use. 41 percent of employees feel there isn't enough collaboration in their workplaces and that social tools could foster better teamwork.

However, some employees are facing challenges, as their companies are hesitant to implement social tools. Of the survey respondents, 40 percent said their IT departments can be a barrier to using new tools, with 74 percent naming security concerns and 50 percent citing the fear of productivity loss as the top obstacles in their organizations. Even as they face these challenges, 21 percent of employees in the Asia Pacific region say they have ignored their organization's IT policy to install social tools, and 31 percent say they know someone who has.

This survey is part of a larger global survey involving 9,908 information workers across 32 countries. Social tools are making SMBs increasingly competitive in the global marketplace. Globally, employees in SMBs were revealed to be generally more receptive to social tools in a professional environment than large enterprises. The survey found that 48 percent of SMBs feel that their productivity has increased because of the use of social tools in the workplace, compared to 45 percent in larger organizations.

Predictably, large enterprises tend to have more restrictions on usage of social tools than SMBs. About 34 percent of large enterprises have restrictions on external social networks, compared with 25 percent of SMBs. Some 33 percent of large enterprises restrict microblogging activities, compared with 24 percent of SMBs.

Hopewell embraces the new way of work with Microsoft enterprise social solutions

Just like the impact of the Internet on businesses, social media is shaping to be a game-changer on how organizations connect with employees, share information and collaborate as employees demand more mobile or flexible work environments. The adoption of enterprise social can deliver real and significant business value in four key areas: productivity, employee engagement, organizational connectedness, and winning and building loyalty with customers.

Hopewell Holdings Limited ("Hopewell") is one of the leading conglomerates in Hong Kong and was listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong in 1972. The Group focuses on Hong Kong region and the Pearl River Delta region in the PRC and has diverse business interests spreading across property investment and development, highway infrastructure, power, hotel and hospitality businesses. This immense diversity in businesses and operation geographies, together with an increasing number of millennial workforce, bring the concomitant challenge of more instant and efficient communication and collaboration in order to maintain their great competitiveness in the marketplace.

Hopewell would like to make enhancement on collaboration, employee engagement and fulfilling the changing demand of younger generation workforce. The usage of e-mail as the primary communication method in Hopewell no longer satisfies all the needs of business operations as information could not be easily consolidated and data could not be circulated among others effectively especially considering its wide-spread presence in both Mainland China and Hong Kong. In addition, the younger members of the workforce are used to the convenient instant messaging tools brought them in their daily lives. These factors urge Hopewell to consider deploying a set of improved and integrated enterprise social and connectivity tools.

Hopewell evaluated different communication tools from vendors, and decided to deploy Microsoft SharePoint because it can help them ease their work flow effectively and strengthen communication by "shortening" the geographic distance between offices at different locations. It revolutionizes the concept of distance for all involved parties by putting everyone on the same page, revealing the progresses of the projects and their responsible individuals or groups to its users. With SharePoint 2013, staff can use the NewsFeed discussion to trace back all the conversations that have taken place on one single topic, thereby saving a great deal of time taken to search for older emails. With the features Issue Log and Tasks, staff can collaborate on projects and share statuses simultaneously. Comparing with using Excel alone, these features help users save at least 50% of their time on consolidation and reporting.

"Employees expect to work using modern tools that enable hyperconnectivity and are reflective of how they interact with each other in their personal lives," said Richard Law, Corporate Affairs Director & Company Secretary of Hopewell Holdings Limited. "By deploying Microsoft SharePoint, we provide the enterprise social tools employees want. The tools also help us improve collaboration, manage projects and retain knowledge better. We have benefited from Microsoft enterprise social tools and are extending them to other departments as well as evaluating other tools from Microsoft."

"Hopewell target to deploy Microsoft SharePoint for over 500 of its employees by the end of 2013, including departments of human resources and marketing and sales. SharePoint 2013 has now become Hopewell's core platform, granting us flexibility and better collaboration, driving our business to even greater success," added Mr. Law.

Due to the increasing pervasiveness of enterprise social tools, Microsoft sees strong momentum in the growth of their enterprise social business. Among these tools, SharePoint is now a US$2 billion business, with 2 out of 3 information worker having access to SharePoint. In Asia Pacific, the Lync business quadrupled over the last 12 months with enterprise voice seats deployment increased 45 fold in the last 3 years. Since the acquisition of Yammer in June 2012, the number of users have grown 55% to approximately 8 million registered seats globally. For Office 365, the business is now generating US$1 billion in revenue annually, and according to IDC, Office 365 has experienced a 150% year-on-year growth against market growth, which is 3 times the rate of the market, with more than 90% of users being SMBs.

"The case for enterprise social is clear -- technologies such as SharePoint, Lync and Yammer will lead to greater productivity, collaboration and even operational cost-saving. Just like the ‘Bring Your Own Device' movement, information workers in Asia Pacific are increasingly taking action in their own hands by bringing enterprise social tools into the workplace. It is clear from this survey that the major hurdle to enterprise social adoption is one of perception by business leaders than of technology limitations. We strongly urge organizations to take serious steps towards providing greater social connectivity for a new generation of information workers to connect and work in a new world of work," added David Hooper, Information Worker Business Group Lead.