Are You & Your Company Going Through A Social Revolution?

Last week saw this years gathering, known as Dreamforce, of a large slice of the cloud community. The event is organised by Salesforce – the world’s largest cloud (‘no software’) software company.

At the keynote by Marc Benioff, chairman & CEO of Salesforce, he talks about the Social Revolution and what it means for business today. For non-Americans the first 6 minutes or so is pretty full-on but hey, it’s fun to watch.

Key points

Here are some of the key take-aways:

• 70% of all (US) businesses are using some aspect of social today
• Social will unlock $1.3 trillion of value for the (US) economy
• Business is investing in social at a higher rate (47% per year) than any other technology
• Customers are flocking to social channels at a rate of 123% per year
• There are now 150 million customer conversations over social channels every day
• CEOs believe social is fast becoming the most important way for companies to interact with customers (at the expense of traditional approaches)
• To succeed, business will have to become more open & transparent than ever before
• The social revolution is a trust revolution

The question he asks is:

Are you and your company going through a social revolution?

He proposes that your response will determine whether or not you will succeed.

What does this mean?

Clearly Marc has a vested interest in pushing the concept & stressing the urgency of a what he calls a revolution. And, one that is being enabled by software companies like his.

I believe however that he is absolutely right to describe the scale & speed of what many businesses are going through right now as nothing short of a revolution.

The question I would ask though is:

Are you and your business ready to adapt to the challenges and opportunities of the social revolution?

Failure to adapt is likely to prove terminal for many.

What do you think?