Archive of tag "SAP"

SAP launches a community career center for customers and partners

September 22, 2009

Corporate Social Media Case Study: SAP

SAP recently added a “Career Center” to their SAP Community Network for members of the SAP ecosystem, including partners, customers, consultants, and vendors, as well as students and new graduates. The new Career Center focuses exclusively on SAP technology related positions.

But, in one of the particularly unique features of the career center, it’s exclusively for the benefit of the community, and not for SAP’s use. Here’s an excerpt from SAP Community Network SVP Mark Yolton:

The reason [SAP is not recruiting through the career center] is that many contracts between SAP and our partners and customers include clauses where we mutually agree not to recruit each other’s talent. Therefore, SAP has decided to keep SAP’s internal recruitment (in other words, jobs where SAP is the employer) separate and requests that our employees not be recruited on the career center site either.

Learn More

Disclosure: SAP is a Social Media Business Council member (and an awesome one at that!), but even if they weren’t, we’d write about them anyway.

Share This Post

Comments

3 comments. Read them below or add one. (Trackback)

Two interviews with SAP's community guru, Mark Yolton

August 6, 2009

SAP’s Senior Vice President of their Community Network, Mark Yolton, was recently featured in a pair of interviews in which he dives into how SAP has built its now six-year-old network with nearly 2 million community members.

First, in an interview with Business.com, a few key points from Mark:

Q: The SAP Community Network (SCN) is six years old and has 1.7 million members. How and why did you grow to that level?

Mark: Core to the success is that we offer specific value to the members. We call them members rather than users. “Members” feels like part of a club – not cold and distant like “users.” We embrace these people as an extension of our company — as important customers and thought leaders – and we treat them respectfully, in a transparent manner.

Q: Does real business occur in your community? If so, how do you track this?

Mark: We help individuals and companies accomplish their jobs faster and with higher quality. This is tracked through anecdotal evidence including feedback from surveys, comments to blogs, discussion forum replies, and so on. … We track how quickly people get answers. … We ask for feedback about quality – and that feedback says community members get extremely high quality answers. Our Net Promoter score in the 60% range. A good score would be in 30-35% range.

Q: How do you set your strategy and measure success given the constantly evolving field of online community and social media?

Mark: We do set up strategy each year for the coming year – and we’re currently working on an updated three-year strategy. At the beginning of each year, we set strategy depending on the maturity of the community at that point, the accomplishments from the year before, the members’ expressed priority wishes, our business strategy and priorities, and other factors. This is largely organic, fluid, and flexible within certain parameters.

See the full interview.

And second, a few highlights from Mark’s interview with SAP’s customer magazine, SAP Info:

Q: How do SAP customers actually benefit from these communities?

Mark: There are many benefits. The first is getting quick, high-quality answers to their questions from other customers, from partners, and from SAP experts. The second is getting connected to other customers from whom customer community members can learn about new trends, shared challenges and best practices – which they might then adopt.

Q: [Paraphrased] How do community members interact with SAP internal experts?

Mark: Our product managers – and a wide range of other SAP experts – are moderators within the community and are engaged in the blogs, wikis and discussion forums. That means they can get direct feedback from our customers.

Q: How does SAP’s community differ from others in the field?

Mark: What we do more than others is break down barriers between us and anybody who doesn’t have a SAP badge. We view it as part of our job to make SAP more porous; to remove the constraints between SAP and our ecosystem of customers, partners, bloggers, and thought leaders, to increase the information flow between all of these entities.

See the full interview.

–

For more on SAP and their communities, check out Mark’s BlogWell presentation.

Share This Post

Comments

1 comment. Read them below or add one. (Trackback)

Welcome to the newest members of the Social Media Business Council

July 31, 2009

We’d like to publicly welcome our newest members of the Social Media Business Council:

  • Sara Lee
  • PepsiCo
  • USAA

They’re joining the likes of Dell, Walmart, Nokia, SAP, GM and Coke – and more than 40 other fantastic, global brands – as members of the Social Media Business Council collaborating every day on how to create successful, scalable, and sustainable social media programs at large organizations.

If you’re leading social media at a major enterprise, we’d love to have you join our family. Click here to learn more.

Share This Post

Comments

27 comments. Read them below or add one. (Trackback)

Upcoming SMBC events

July 31, 2009

8/04 SAP: How to establish community guidelines (Member-only call) Click here

8/06 Dell: Blending community and e-commerce (Public call) Click here

8/12 SMBC Member Meeting 6: Morning big issue discussions; member-led unconferences; closing round-table discussion with a special guest (Private event) Click here

8/13 BlogWell Minneapolis: Walmart, McDonald’s, CME Group, H&R Block, Mayo Clinic, Progressive, Ford, and General Mills share case studies in corporate social media. You’ll learn how to get started, get past roadblocks, and make your social media program phenomenal. (Public event) Click here

Share This Post

Comments

1 comment. Read them below or add one. (Trackback)

← Previous Entries

Email Newsletters

*We will never, ever release your email. (Privacy Policy)
**Third-party newsletter (Privacy Policy)

About SMBC

The Social Media Business Council, formerly the Blog Council, is a brands-only community focused on helping large organizations build successful social media programs.

SMBC members gain instant access and advice from the heads of social media at the world's biggest brands, including Dell, Walmart, Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, GE, and Procter & Gamble. Members collaborate and share best practices in a friendly, productive, and private environment.

The Social Media Business Council is a GasPedal project. We teach word of mouth marketing and social media to companies of all sizes.

Tell a Friend

We will not use email addresses for any purpose other than sending this recommendation. (Privacy Policy)

Thanks for the word of mouth! Your message has been sent!

Please enter a valid email.

Your email failed. Try again later.