While nowadays browsing Facebook while at work is a no-go this could change in the near future. On October 10th 2016 the social media giant has introduced a new form of its online application called ‘Workplace’. It is presented as an internal version to help connect coworkers and promote internal communication.
Current intra-firm communication tools
The key players in communication software within firms are Slack, Hipchat & Microsoft. Slack is often labeled as the fastest growing start-up, it gives coworkers a place to communicate with each other through direct messaging and chat rooms. It launched in February of 2014 and currently it has accumulated over 2 million active users every day (Cave, 2016). Slack tries to make inter-firm communication cool, with customizable rooms, humorous Slackbot commentary and the ability to integrate many cloud services into a worker’s workflow. Hipchat offers a similar function, however, it upholds a more serious and focused appearance (Walter, 2016). Even though Hipchat’s CEO has avidly denied that they sees Slack as its competitor the fight to obtain the monopoly position in enterprise communication has undoubtedly begun (Moazed, 2015). The last competitor in this list Is Microsoft with Yammer, although it is not in the race yet to ‘take-it-all’, the application’s close connection to Office 365 and potential future connection to LinkedIn give it an interesting competitive advantage (Walter, 2016).
Workplace
Back to Facebook, in an obvious attempt to obtain a part of the enterprise communication market it has introduced Workplace. The company describes the new application as the best of Facebook, plus new features. The service has already been tested by almost 300 companies and is currently used by over 1,000 organizations such as Starbucks, Danone, and Booking.com (“Introducing Workplace by Facebook”, 2016). The short video below shows the general idea of how Workplace would be used:
The design is similar as that of Facebook, but the iconic Facebook-blue has been replaced by more serious-looking gray tones. Furthermore, the Workplace application is completely separated from an employee’s private Facebook account and the application is advertisement free (“Trust Principles”, 2016).
Advantages of Workplace
One of the major advantages of Workplace is that everyone is already familiar with Facebook. The similarities between Workplace and Facebook enables employees to instantaneously begin using the app, without extensive training or instructions. Furthermore, the pricing plan is also very competitive, as a comparison, where Slack’s basic subscription is around 6,5$ per user, Workplace fees can go as low as 1$ (Paymans, 2016). However, it needs to be mentioned that Slack also has a free version available, although this version can only be used in smaller teams due to capacity restrictions. Another benefit is the fact that Workplace is a mobile-first product (Linssen, 2016). Given the fact that more and more companies evolve into more mobile forms of working, including the use of telecommuting, this can be of great importance. Facebook also offers a function that enables companies to invite third parties (who are not necessarily using Workplace) to participate in a particular group/project (“Introducing Workplace by Facebook”, 2016). Lifting communications restrictions and the need to use different applications for inside and outside enterprise communication.
Lack of integration
One major drawback of Workplace that can be observed shortly after the announcement is the lack of integration of third party services (Paymans, 2016). This is in stark contrast with Slack, which currently has multiple integrated applications offering services ranging from expense administration to recruitment management (Ghoshal, 2016) which are introduced in the video below:
Future of enterprise communication
Only time can tell if Facebook will succeed in competing in/winning the enterprise communication battle or if it will be one of the other mentioned alternatives. There might even be other start-ups/initiatives that offer even more relevant features to firms.
Sources:
Cave, A. (2016). Will 2016 Be The Year Slack Goes Truly Mainstream?. Forbes.com. Retrieved 16 October 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewcave/2015/12/31/will-2016-be-the-year-slack-goes-truly-mainstream/#2aa40e627f46
Ghoshal, A. (2016). Slack introduces interactive integrations from third-party apps. The Next Web. Retrieved 14 October 2016, from http://thenextweb.com/apps/2016/06/22/slack-supercharges-chat-app-interactive-integrations-third-party-services/
Introducing Workplace by Facebook. (2016). Facebook Newsroom. Retrieved 15 October 2016, from http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/10/introducing-workplace-by-facebook/
Linssen, J. (2016). Alles wat je moet weten over Workplace van Facebook. Emerce. Retrieved 16 October 2016, from http://www.emerce.nl/achtergrond/alles-moet-weten-workplace-facebook
Moazed, A. (2015). Slack And HipChat Are On The Verge Of Launching Chat Wars. TechCrunch. Retrieved 15 October 2016, from https://techcrunch.com/2015/12/23/slack-and-hipchat-are-on-the-verge-of-launching-chat-wars/
Paymans, L. (2016). Facebook Workplace: 5 verschillen met concurrende bedrijfsnetwerken. iPhoned. Retrieved 14 October 2016, from https://www.iphoned.nl/apps/facebook-workplace/
Trust Principles. (2016). Workplace by Facebook. Retrieved 16 October 2016, from https://workplace.fb.com/
Walter, D. (2016). Slack vs. HipChat vs. Yammer. CMSWire.com. Retrieved 14 October 2016, from http://www.cmswire.com/social-business/slack-vs-hipchat-vs-yammer/
Dear Iris,
Thanks for pointing out that Facebook is starting to compete in the enterprise communication battle, did not know this yet! I like the idea that the interface of Workplace is very similar to that of Facebook, allowing quick adoption. The low price per user seems like a key selling point as well. However, I personally started using Slack a couple of months ag, and actually the integration with other applications and services such as Google Calendar made it valuable and useful for me. I wonder why Facebook chose to opt for not allowing Workforce to integrate with third party services, would be a very strong competitor in my eyes otherwise.
Luca
Hey Iris,
I actually never heard of Workplace by Facebook and I am not so sure what to think about it. I can imagine that the advantage of Workplace, the easy understanding of the platform as it looks a lot like Facebook’s lay out, can become an overall disadvantage for Facebook.
Facebook is a community provider which is associated with fun and friends. People will now create a different feeling with the same lay-out as I assume that not everyone has the same associations with their work.
Would you think of the lay-out as an advantage or disadvantage?
Dear Iris,
Thank you for your insightful article! It was very interesting to read about these innovative communication companies, and to see which are benefits and drawbacks of them.
As I was reading through the article, I also thought about another company which makes internal communication easier and is particularly useful for planning purposes: Asana (https://asana.com/). It aims at improving project management and organization of work within teams.
I hope you’ll find it interesting too.
Dear Iris,
I found this article very interesting, it immediately got me thinking about the implications this has for certain companies and for our own lives.
Internal communication tools and workplace solutions got a lot of attention over the last couple of years. This in my opinion could be the first legitimate threat to Salesforce. Facebook has been very successful in managing its network and has always been very strategic when it comes to opening its network for network sponsors or network suppliers. Meaning that an aggressive strategy could completely envelope Salesforce market. Facebook has grown from a market cap of 55 billion dollars in 2013 to over 370 billion in 2016, Facebook is scaling so quickly that it is hard to imagine what kind of household product Facebook will be to our lives. If our social life and our work will all be connected to one platform soon, then how dependent would we be on Facebook by 2030. Facebook which is being run by a 32 year old have a serious moral and social responsibility, they soon could be responsible for every action we do in our lives.