5/5 (19) While nowadays browsing Facebook while at work is a no-go this could change in the near future. On October 10^th 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The design is similar as that of Facebook, but the iconic Facebook-blue has been replaced by more serious-looking gray tones.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/