Schneider Electric implemented an enterprise social platform called tibbr to address challenges of collaborating across its 140,000+ employees in over 100 countries with diverse cultures. It deployed tibbr in a phased, structured approach to drive adoption. Early signs showed rapid responses from experts, increased collaboration, and issues getting resolved faster. Metrics found over 95,000 accounts activated, 45,000 employees connected from 114 countries, and high levels of returning users and collaborators. The social platform is helping Schneider Electric realize its goal of better knowledge sharing across the global organization.
Hello everyone and welcome. So who is Schneider Electric? At a glance you can see Schneider Electric is a very large company.We have 24 billion euro in revenue with 41% of our sales in new economiesMore than 140,000 staff and devote 4-5% of our revenue to R&D efforts We make everything from plug to plug. Meaning when you plug something in we make all of the components that bring and protect the electricity being brought to you.Some of our major brands are APC, Square D.We work with our customers and promise that our solutions can save up to 30% of their current energy usage which in a large industrial setting can amount to allot of money.
At Schneider Electric we are a company of acquisition.The many years of acquisitions have created many business challenges and added thousands of new staff.Along with the growth in our newly acquired acquisitions it has also created many new silos and a created additional disconnects between the newly acquired staff and existing staff.When you add geography, culture and language barriers along with the acquisitions it was clear that we needed to do something to bring everyone together. We needed one web based collaboration platform for all.
So what did we do?We created a new platform. The social enterprise desktop! Since renamed to Spice.We aligned with our company program that was designed to connect our staff efficiently anywhere anytime to each other and our customers.Our journey would contain things like Customer centric collaboration & knowledge,Cultural transformation, Information accessincreased Employee productivity and shared practices
Why did we choose tibbr?We chose tibbr because it is simple and easy to useTibbr allows for a vast amount of application integrationsTibbr has a very solid mobile platformThe subject model is hierarchical One extensible web platform allows for rapid adoption getting everyone connected
What does our solution look like?One portal that can facilitate total enterprise collaboration.The backbone of our collaboration platform is tibbr.The plaform currently includes some of the things you see here such as Box, Formvine, SFDC & Webex with more coming over the next few years.
How did we deploy Spice?We deployed starting with gathering all of our existing communities and moving them in Spice.We then started a phased deployment and eventually opened the application to all knowledge workers in a big bang.
Constant change – requires harmonization of many systems creating user fatigueCultural impact – Many people don’t see the value or how it can benefit their teams, not the way in which they are used to workingNot only on boarding of new employees, but of entire organizations – requires Stakeholders concerned about additional efforts required, as well as too much transparencyPrivacy concerns – Publicly posting information (Sharing vs. Messaging), “It’s a Waste of time and a distraction”, “Not a productivity tool”Misconception of ‘Social’ in a business contextWe realized that deploying to such a huge audience would require help. So we created a global adoption network. This initiative is still in progress. We are working to have a collaboration leader appointed in every country and a collaboration champion in every site. The theory is that this would create a direct connection between our program and members. This way we can pass through information, receive feedback and work directly to support a region in need.
Success storiesInformation is being shared more openly – Schneider is starting to know more about what Schneider knowsSolutions are being found to important business questionsQuestions are getting answeredTeams and expertise are evolvingCommunities of interest and practice
How are we measuring the change?We have weekly reporting by country and business unit that provides information based on two categories of users, collaborators (users logged in but not participating) and contributors (users logged in and posting, replying, liking, etc…As you can see we have activated our 95,000 knowledge workers and have seen 45,000 login once to date.Of the 45,000 more than 32,000 return each week giving us a 70% return rate which is pretty impressive.In 2014 we will work on converting the collaborators to contributors by integrating our intranet and some global communications,
Because of the change in workflow the we build they will come wont work there has to be communication, training and sponsorship.Open enterprise – more communications happening, expectations, Least restrictive model, Change to more democratic environment, Positives- new expectations and understandings, faster delivery times, more access to knowledge
Story showing that change management and business transformation is a process, and takes some time: and SE has gotten it right, but see where we started from to see the real impact.Story to tell: Early launch phase, a regular user who was very creative had a short video created for his small team being deployed on tibbr.It was much better than the official video that was created by the internal communications departmentThe user-created video was just posted to that person’s small team that was just deployed on tibbrIt quickly went viral, and everyone on tibbr at that early stage (~1500 people) loved it, and said so.Internal Comms felt that they had lost control of the messaging about tibbr, even though these types of activities are exactly why tibbr was being usedThe video was pulled down as a formal request against the wishes of the person who posted it to his small team. He wasn’t trying to make things better for everyone, just his small team.After lots of focus on what transformation we are trying to achieve, lessons on change management, time to learn and appreciate what social does for an organization, I’m happy to say, that video is now being used for Spice, and the person who created it was appointed to the Spice Adoption Team – it is a great example, of how these things take time, of why social is different, of why it is not just a product purchase but a commitment to change; of why it is a good idea to have experts like tibbr Strategy Services helping to guide you; and of why it is worth it, and there is real value to the entire organization, and customers and shareholders when you succeed with these opportunities.Thank you!