Social Business Forum 2014: Be Social, Get Value! From The Perfect Storm to The Now Paradigm

Unprecedented turnout and public participation at the seventh edition of the Social Business Forum, the leading event in Europe on social business and digital transformation which took place on July 1st and 2nd at the Marriott Hotel in Milan. 20 International speakers, 30 business cases and 50 speeches have tackled crucial issues of business and organizations in the XXI century: How can companies and markets be transformed by leveraging collaborative and social logics and architectures? What new forms can organizations adopt in order to face the disruption in business models and practices? How can companies measure, lead and get value from processes of social and digital transformation?

The two-day conference was opened by the keynote speech of Rosario Sica, Chairman & Co-Founder of OpenKnowledge. The speech, titled From Vision to Value, described the “perfect storm” that we have lived from 2008 to 2014 and that has brought out new business models, new organizational forms, new technological architectures. We are in “The Now Paradigm”, said Sica, talking of disruptive economy, service-dominant logic, value co-creation, data-intensive age and empowered customer relationship, and presenting a preview of two new apps: those of the Social Business Toolkit and the Social Business Index. The two mobile apps, using forms of gamification and collaboration, will allow to evaluate and measure the transformation path towards the social and digital enterprise and the value generated by social business.

Among the key moments of the Social Business Forum, the Open Conference hosted outstanding speakers who were able to thrill the whole packed audience.

Dave Carroll, for instance, entertained the audience with a dynamic and original performance that presented his consumer experience in a social and musical form, leading companies to ponder the importance of correctly managing their relationships with customers. Among the speakers who animated the two-day dialogue: Michael Brito (Group Director of the consulting company WCG and author of Your Brand: The New Media Company); Cheryl e Mark Burgess (authors of The Social Employee), who explained the more and more decisive role of social executives and employee branding; and Lee Bryant of Post*Shift, who told how social and collaborative technologies encourage new organizational forms that are less hierarchical and more open, netlike, participatory.

At the end of the first day the plenary session hosted a round table with Enrico Sassoon, director of Harvard Business Review Italia, as moderator. Titled ‘The Digital CEO’, the round table included Stefano Folli (President and CEO of Philips Spa), Stefano Venturi (CEO of Hewlett Packard Italia) and Franco Moscetti (CEO of Amplifon Group) and provided the top management’s perspective on the transformation under way.
Those who took part in the Premium session, were able to listen to the experiences of companies of International standing which, through numerous case studies, showed how social strategies can support businesses in managing relationship with their clients and their employees. Corporations such as Banca Intesa S.Paolo, Banca Ifis, BNP Paribas, Coin, Danone, Eni, Goodyear, Ketchum, Magneti Marelli Motor Sport, Mediolanum, Philips, Poste Mobile, Uber, Vodafone e Var Group were among the protagonists of the Premium Conference various moments, organized in thematic tracks (idea-driven organization, collaborative workspace and social customer experience).

The many attending industries (Communications, ICT, Consulting, Banking, Food & Beverage, Pharma, Education, etc.), and the variety of corporate functions that attended the event (CEO, Country Manager, Marketing Manager, Communication Manager, Sales Manager, IT Manager, HR Manager, etc.) outlined an evolving landscape, in which companies are more and more aware of the need to implement social strategies at all organizational levels, both internally and in the external ecosystem.

“We are extremely happy and proud of the success of this new edition of the Social Business Forum” – said Rosario Sica. “In fact, it’s the success of the whole community that in the last few years has been working to build the organizations and businesses of our present and future. With this enlarged community (sponsors, companies, speakers and, clearly, all those who participated by attending), we built an event which is a unique occasion for social business learning and networking, mutual check and stimuli, sharing of both successes and difficulties that occur daily in the transformation process. This process of change is essentially cultural and organizational, rather than technological. It requires commitment but also engagement, diffused leadership and vision. Not by chance, in my opening speech I emphasized the path, at the same time systemic and adaptive, which from the vision of new social paradigms leads to the value that is generated by collaborative practices”.