Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities 2015–2019 Forecast and 2014 Vendor Shares

MARKET ANALYSIS Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities 2015–2019 Forecast and 2014 Vendor Shares

Vanessa Thompson

IDC OPINION

The market for enterprise social networks (ESNs) evolved significantly in 2014. There is an increasing presence of social workflow capabilities being surfaced inside business applications, but at the same time, online communities to support customers, employees, partners, and suppliers are growing rapidly. IDC expects the market for both standalone and embedded ESNs to continue to slow significantly as many more enterprise applications become social in nature. However, the market for online communities is growing rapidly. Toward the end of the forecast period, enterprise social networks may not even be called out as a separate market. In addition:

. IDC expects the worldwide enterprise social networks market revenue to grow from $1.46 billion in 2014 to $3.5 billion by 2019, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.1%. . IDC expects the worldwide online communities market revenue to grow from $392.95 million in 2014 to $1.2 billion by 2019, representing a CAGR of 24.3%. . Connecting to customers, employees, partners, and suppliers has always been a mission- critical activity. Alongside rapidly shifting expectations, communities have become a broker between business networks and will only continue to contribute more value to organizations trying to develop ongoing relationships.

July 2015, IDC #257492 IN THIS STUDY

This study examines the enterprise social networks market for the period from 2010 to 2019, with vendor revenue trends and market growth forecasts. Worldwide market sizing is provided for 2014, with trends from 2013. A five-year growth forecast for this market is shown for 2015–2019. Revenue and market share of the leading vendors in both enterprise social networks and online communities are provided for 2014. Methodology See the Methodology in the Learn More section for a description of the forecasting and analysis methodology employed in this study.

In addition, please note the following:

. The information contained in this study was derived from IDC's Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker database as of June 8, 2015. . All numbers in this document may not be exact due to rounding. . For more information on IDC's software definitions and methodology, see IDC's Software Taxonomy, 2015 (IDC #256767, June 2015). Enterprise Social Networks Market Definition Enterprise social networks (ESNs) enable social workflow capabilities to be delivered to users that are either inside or outside an organization's firewall. Users in non-customer-facing roles are the focus of these solutions, but customer-facing interactions may also occur. Solution capabilities of enterprise social networks should include, but are not limited to, activity streams, blogs, wikis, microblogging, discussion forums, groups (public or private), ideas, profiles, recommendation engines (people, content, or objects), tagging, bookmarking, and secure communities. An ESN provides a social workflow or relationship layer in a business that can be an independent or a standalone solution and/or a set of service-oriented APIs or integrated applications that coexist with other business and communications applications. Vendors tracked in the enterprise social networks market can offer discrete solutions supporting one type of social functionality (such as community management, ideation, or innovation management) or a broad-based platform that encompasses many functionality traits. A variety of deployment options (on-premises, software as a service [SaaS], hosted application management, or software appliance) are made available.

Online communities is a subsegment of the enterprise social networks market and includes all online communities.

Communities enable the collection and incorporation of user-generated feedback (content can include files and rich media) and may also include capabilities such as blogs, discussion forums, profiles, tagging, comments, and ratings/ranking. Communities operate on owned digital properties and can be customer, employee, or partner/supplier based and serve a specific member/community-based organization. Solutions may also enable aggregation of external social data sources into owned sites though social log-in, social plug-ins (including proprietary connectors, Web services, or iFrames).

The communities market definition excludes:

 Social media publishing capabilities; this also includes social media ad placement.

SITUATION OVERVIEW

The Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Market in 2014 ESNs continue to become common place in the modern enterprise. Throughout 2014, there was significant repositioning of the major ESN vendors. IBM continues to focus on IBM Connections as it supports IBM Verse, the company's new email product. Jive Software has created a focus on workstyles with a range of new products focused on individual productivity, from calendaring through to mobile application messaging with Jive Chime. Microsoft is hastily increasing the capabilities and scope of Office 365 that also includes Yammer, and the focus on Office 365 APIs is encouraging where other business applications can be connected to the suite. Salesforce.com is aggressively pushing the Community Cloud, and Chatter is now accounted for as part of the salesforce.com platform business. Finally, Lithium Technologies is well placed to IPO in the coming year as its customer base is maturing well. Performance of Leading Vendors in 2014 Table 1 and Figure 1 display 2012–2014 worldwide revenue and 2014 growth and market share for enterprise social networks vendors. Year-over-year (YoY) growth for almost all vendors in the market was in double digits. The continued growth of salesforce.com is on the back of the change in positioning of Chatter to become a more horizontal support layer to Salesforce1, alongside the addition of the Community Cloud offerings for sales, marketing, and partner communities.

Table 2 and Figure 2 display 2012–2014 worldwide revenue and 2014 growth and market share for online communities vendors. Online communities is a subsegment of the enterprise social networks market and in its most basic form refers to a Web-based destination where people can connect, find resources, and discuss issues around an industry, an organization, a product, or a set of values.

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Revenue by Vendor, 2012–2014 ($M)

2013–2014 2012 2013 2014 2014 Share (%) Growth (%)

IBM 142.7 172.7 185.5 12.7 7.4

Jive Software 102.3 130.5 162.2 11.1 24.3

Salesforce.com 29.6 91.2 161.6 11.1 77.2

Microsoft 44.0 76.0 97.2 6.7 27.9

Lithium 52.5 81.5 92.3 6.3 13.2

Zimbra 39.1 47.9 65.3 4.5 36.4

SAP 10.9 34.1 47.1 3.2 38.2

Socialtext 34.6 34.8 35.2 2.4 1.4

Mindjet 17.6 18.6 23.1 1.6 23.9

Get Satisfaction 14.9 18.5 23.0 1.6 24.4

INgage Networks 15.7 17.5 20.6 1.4 18.2

Google – 10.9 16.6 1.1 52.7

Igloo Software 10.4 13.5 16.0 1.1 18.0

TIBCO 10.0 12.2 14.9 1.0 22.2

Zyncro 5.7 9.5 12.6 0.9 32.9

ATOS 7.9 8.6 8.6 0.6 0.1

VMware 4.7 6.6 8.0 0.5 21.7

Cisco 2.0 1.4 1.6 0.1 18.0

TOTVS – 0.1 0.2 0.0 204.6

Subtotal 544.9 785.8 991.6 67.9 26.2

Other 414.1 491.3 468.1 32.1 -4.7

Total 959.0 1,277.1 1,459.7 100.0 14.3

Source: IDC, June 2015

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Revenue Share by Vendor, 2014

Source: IDC, June 2015

TABLE 2

Worldwide Online Communities Revenue by Vendor, 2012–2014 ($M)

2013–2014 2012 2013 2014 2014 Share (%) Growth (%)

Salesforce.com 29.6 64.8 139.3 35.4 114.8

Lithium 52.5 81.5 92.3 23.5 13.2

Jive Software 26.6 37.8 53.5 13.6 41.5

Zimbra 27.4 33.5 45.7 11.6 36.4

Get Satisfaction 14.9 18.5 23.0 5.9 24.4

Igloo Software 10.4 13.5 16.0 4.1 18.0

TIBCO 10.0 12.2 14.9 3.8 22.2

Google – 5.4 8.3 2.1 52.7

Total 171.4 267.3 393.0 100.0 47.0

Source: IDC, June 2015

Worldwide Online Communities Revenue Share by Vendor, 2014

Source: IDC, June 2015

Performance by Geographic Region in 2014 North America makes up the lion's share of revenue in the enterprise social networks market. However, EMEA (Western Europe and CEMA) experienced good growth through 2014, in line with the deployment of cloud-based services in the region. Asia/Pacific (including Japan) (APJ) still represents a small portion of revenue in enterprise social networks as the market is still immature in relation to North America (see Figure 3).

FIGURE 3

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Revenue Share by Region, 2014

Source: IDC, June 2015

Forecast and Assumptions The following factors are likely to drive revenue growth in enterprise social networks and online communities during the forecast period:

. Communicating with customers rather than just responding has become a business focus. This shift signifies that organizations are wanting to drive more awareness of their brand as well as have an ongoing conversation with customers. This is particularly suited to online communities where brands can quickly build a trust relationship with customers, employees, partners, and suppliers. . Social workflow is at the core of how companies can create competitive differentiation and advantage, but it is far from simply implementing some new software/hardware and automating processes. It should be inherent in how companies do business, with technology being the enabler. . The rapidly changing nature of work means that the role of social workflow will become increasingly important to enable users to get their work done wherever they choose to work. Business decisions will be made via new outputs (likely mobile based) that integrate analytics and data with people and systems. . There is an opportunity for online communities to become marketplaces of their own where partners and suppliers are able to start transacting in the community to help solve other customer or partner questions. The following factors are likely to inhibit revenue growth in enterprise social networks during the forecast period:

. The level of deployment of enterprise social networks (the Americas region in particular) indicates that many organizations have already deployed solutions, and the incremental increase in revenue for standalone solutions will be nominal. . The IT department will be increasingly involved in deployment and integration to ensure social solutions meet enterprise requirements for security, compliance, and IP protection. Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Forecast, 2015–2019 IDC's estimate of growth of the enterprise social networks and online communities markets through 2019 is presented in Table 3. The enterprise social networks market is expected to reach $3.5 billion by 2019 at a CAGR of 19.1%. The online communities market is expected to reach $1.2 billion by 2019 at a CAGR of 24.3%.

IDC analysts around the globe supplied regional input and insight into the enterprise social networks forecast. The worldwide forecast is the aggregation of this regional data. The forecast is for the Americas region to retain a good growth rate throughout the forecast period, although EMEA and APJ are expected to grow more aggressively. To date, the Americas region represents a disproportionately high share of revenue, as the EMEA and Asia/Pacific (including Japan) regions can expect a longer time frame for change with respect to standalone enterprise social networks and may transition directly to embedded applications as more enterprise applications assume social workflow. Table 4 shows the regional share breakdown for 2014 and 2019 and revenue forecast for 2014–2019. Figure 4 shows the regional revenue data for 2014 and 2019 in graphical form.

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Revenue, 2014–2019 ($M)

2014–2019 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 CAGR (%)

Enterprise social networks 1,459.7 1,707.2 2,031.7 2,422.3 2,898.4 3,498.7 19.1

Growth (%) 14.3 17.0 19.0 19.2 19.7 20.7

Online communities 393.0 477.7 590.7 736.5 925.5 1,167.2 24.3

Growth (%) 47.0 21.6 23.6 24.7 25.7 26.1

Note: See Table 5 for top 3 assumptions and Table 6 for key forecast assumptions.

Source: IDC, June 2015

TABLE 4

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Revenue by Region, 2014–2019 ($M)

2014 2019 Share 2014–2019 Share 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 (%) CAGR (%) (%)

North America 1,046.3 1,138.4 1,245.3 1,347.8 1,452.4 1,550.5 71.7 8.2 44.3

EMEA 346.4 493.9 702.4 979.9 1,339.8 1,829.4 23.7 39.5 52.3

APJ 67.0 74.9 84.0 94.6 106.3 118.7 4.6 12.1 3.4

Total 1,459.7 1,707.2 2,031.7 2,422.3 2,898.4 3,498.7 100.0 19.1 100.0

Note: See Table 5 for top 3 assumptions and Table 6 for key forecast assumptions.

Source: IDC, June 2015

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Revenue by Region, 2014 and 2019

Source: IDC, June 2015

Assumptions Table 5 shows the top 3 assumptions for the enterprise social networks market, and Table 6 shows the key forecast assumptions underlying this forecast.

Top 3 Assumptions for the Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Market, 2015–2019

Changes to This Assumption That Could Market Force IDC Assumption Significance Affect Current Forecast Comments

Economy Economic A down economy The forecast assumes At present, the fallout performance has been affects business and that the benefits of from global hot spots mixed in 2015. Low oil consumer confidence, lower, and stable, remains contained. It prices have boosted the availability of energy prices will assist would require a confidence in energy- credit and private growth, and therefore significant and importing countries investment, and IT spending, in both material geopolitical like India, and Western internal funding. A industrialized and crisis to have a Europe has continued global recession developing economies, worldwide price to show moderate would cause without triggering a erosion on the overall improvements (despite businesses to delay spike in interest rates. ICT market. continued uncertainty IT upgrades and Slower growth in China over Grexit). On the some new projects; a is manageable at other hand, rising economy does present levels but could momentum has the opposite. A crisis drag down global GDP slowed in China and (perhaps triggered by growth should the Japan, while the U.S. more volatility in situation worsen. economy was weaker emerging markets) in the first quarter. We could create a chain assume that the of events that would United States will drive tech spending improve in the second much lower in the half of the year and near term. that China will use policy to stabilize growth at around 7%. But with Russia and Latin America stuttering, the global economy will grow by less than 3%.

Top 3 Assumptions for the Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Market, 2015–2019

Changes to This Assumption That Could Market Force IDC Assumption Significance Affect Current Forecast Comments

Enterprise The need to support Collaboration and Upside: Over-the-top It is no longer good decision making ad hoc decisions personal productivity mobile application enough to just offer becomes increasingly are rapidly changing, messaging will become APIs to extend existing critical. Companies will and new features are coupled with ad hoc business processes. look to native being defined and decision making. The user interface and collaboration incorporated to meet usability workflow Downside: Business applications and other emerging business aspects must also be processes that are rigid lightweight SaaS- needs. streamlined so that in nature will require based and mobile users have the same additional user collaboration tools to experience across any interaction. This means support other business device. that the information to decisions. decision process will take longer.

User centricity Consumerization of Initiatives from Upside: Increasing User expectations will the enterprise vendors to launch business pressures and continue to change continues with social workflow the change in user rapidly, but often this consumer devices and features as a workstyles have is not in step with the Web applications complement to created the opportunity enterprise IT buying brought into the existing collaboration to build and architect cycle, so organizations workplace as well as applications and applications and will need to become vendors positioning business workflow will processes directly from more agile and deliver products/solutions to continue. For user behavior rather experiences to users increasingly suit user instance, content than delivering mobile that they expect needs, not IT. repositories and versions of current outside of the work enterprise social enterprise business context. networks will become applications. accessible from inside Downside: Many other applications. A organizations do not number of enterprise yet have clarity around social software an enterprise mobility vendors have strategy and are launched mobile OS investing in both mobile SDKs in support of device management this trend. and mobile application management. This creates a significant spending increase to manage both devices and applications.

Source: IDC, June 2015

Key Forecast Assumptions for the Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Market, 2015–2019

Accelerator/ Inhibitor/ Certainty of Market Force IDC Assumption Impact Neutral Assumption

Macroeconomics

Economy Economic performance has High. A down economy affects been mixed in 2015. Low oil business and consumer prices have boosted confidence confidence, the availability of in energy-importing countries credit and private investment, like India, and Western Europe and internal funding. A global has continued to show recession would cause moderate improvements businesses to delay IT (despite continued uncertainty upgrades and some new over Grexit). On the other hand, projects; a rising economy does momentum has slowed in the opposite. A crisis (perhaps China and Japan, while the triggered by more volatility in   U.S. economy was weaker in emerging markets) could create the first quarter. We assume a chain of events that would that the United States will drive tech spending much lower improve in the second half of in the near term. the year and that China will use policy to stabilize growth at around 7%. But with Russia and Latin America stuttering, the global economy will grow by less than 3%.

Crisis duration/ Although there is increased High. A crisis in economic potential relapse uncertainty surrounding the confidence will shake IT future of Greece in the spending to the core within a eurozone, the overall European short time frame, as observed economy appears less likely to in 2009. With modular IT relapse into crisis than a year spending dominating IT buyer ago. A debt crisis is possible in strategy, businesses stand China as the economy ready to delay or postpone   continues to grapple with the capital spending and new overhand of its response to the projects. On the flip side, this financial crisis, but we currently creates pent-up demand, assume that the government especially in emerging markets. has enough firepower in its policy arsenal to avert the worst-case scenarios.

Key Forecast Assumptions for the Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Market, 2015–2019

Accelerator/ Inhibitor/ Certainty of Market Force IDC Assumption Impact Neutral Assumption

Vertical industries The main drag on IT spending High. A downturn in major is from the public sector, with contributors to IT revenue (e.g., government spending cuts in the financial services sector) the United States and austerity can have a major impact on IT measures in most of Europe. spending. Momentum in vertical Dynamic industries include sectors (e.g., healthcare) can healthcare, which continues its drive overall IT spending. pace of modernization to deal Industry-specific solutions are with aging populations in increasingly a major contributor mature economies, and the to growth.   services sector. Manufacturing firms are investing to improve their global competitiveness, while telecom operators are engaged in customer retention efforts. Industry-specific solutions will be a major driver for IT spending.

Key Forecast Assumptions for the Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Market, 2015–2019

Accelerator/ Inhibitor/ Certainty of Market Force IDC Assumption Impact Neutral Assumption

Global megatrends

Cloud Cloud is a new paradigm of High. The key advantage to computing that will shape IT cloud services should be the spending over the next several ability of IT organizations to decades — the logical evolution shift IT resources from of what IDC called "dynamic IT" maintenance to new initiatives. for years. It entails shared This in turn could lead to new access to virtualized resources business revenue and over the Internet. IDC estimates competitiveness as well as that cloud services spending create new opportunities for IT will continue to grow at double- vendors in SMB and emerging digit rates for the next few markets. The benefits will be years, gradually accounting for offset by cannibalization in the a larger proportion of all IT short term though, resulting in   spending. In the short term and shorter service engagements, the medium term, this will have price model disruption, and a negative impact on IT some hardware spending, enabling end users commoditization. A stronger to lower their overall spending economy would see most on certain solutions. However, organizations shift resources to in the long term, we believe that new IT development and cloud will have a positive adoption areas in the long term. overall impact on industry We see cloud adoption as an IT growth as more users adopt spending driver overall, despite more advanced computing these cannibalization effects in solutions at a faster rate. the next few years.

Key Forecast Assumptions for the Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Market, 2015–2019

Accelerator/ Inhibitor/ Certainty of Market Force IDC Assumption Impact Neutral Assumption

The digital The impact of the new digital Moderate. Look for faster marketplace marketplace can be seen in development of the software- software as a service, the as-a-service model, more integration of Internet and development of composite enterprise search and other applications, and more directly functionality, the concept of competitive products (e.g., "cloud computing," and social network application competition for ad revenue platforms). Also look for rapid among Microsoft, Google, and growth of Internet advertising other vendors. The digital revenue in emerging marketplace will affect content geographies.   delivery, commerce, datacenter architectures, advertising, marketing, telecommunications, and social interactions. It may also accelerate the consumption of ICT in emerging geographies, where more and more online populations reside.

Internet of Things The Internet of Things refers to High. The addition of billions of the proliferation of client devices to the network edge will devices and end-user or end- drive the need for more use devices at the network enterprise systems to deploy, edge. These other devices manage, and make use of range from smartphones and these devices. It will also shift networked entertainment the prevailing traffic from the devices to automobiles, center of the network outward building automation systems, to edge inward, which will affect smart meters and thermostats, computing and communications medical electronics, and architectures. industrial controllers, not to   mention RFID tags and sensors. Communicating client devices will proliferate at 5–10 times the rate of PCs installed. Devices will both converge (smartphones with more functionality) and diverge (single-use devices, such as RFID readers and industry- specific devices).

Key Forecast Assumptions for the Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Market, 2015–2019

Accelerator/ Inhibitor/ Certainty of Market Force IDC Assumption Impact Neutral Assumption

Specific market trends

Converged Conferencing and messaging Moderate. Convergence will modality are becoming more of a drive new competitive multimodal experience and are dynamics, offer new being built into social workflow applications and functions to to meet the needs of the new customers. Applications that   enterprise workspace. have the embedded video capability enable users to do different tasks within the same application.

Enterprise decision The need to support ad hoc Moderate. Collaboration and making decisions becomes increasingly personal productivity are rapidly critical. Companies will look to changing, and new features are native collaboration being defined and incorporated applications and other to meet emerging business   lightweight SaaS-based and needs. mobile collaboration tools to support other business decisions.

User centricity Consumerization of the High. Initiatives from vendors enterprise continues with to launch social workflow consumer devices and Web features as a complement to applications brought into the existing collaboration workplace as well as vendors applications and business positioning products/solutions workflow will continue. For to increasingly suit user needs, instance, content repositories not IT. and enterprise social networks   will become accessible from inside other applications. A number of enterprise social software vendors have launched mobile OS SDKs in support of this trend.

Key Forecast Assumptions for the Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Market, 2015–2019

Accelerator/ Inhibitor/ Certainty of Market Force IDC Assumption Impact Neutral Assumption

Consumption

Buying sentiment Buying sentiment has High. Buyer sentiment fluctuated in recent months, in obviously has a major direct line with stock markets and impact on IT spending. macroeconomic events/risk Confidence can be volatile from factors. In the past 12 months, month to month, however, and CIOs have consistently CIOs have often misjudged underforecast their own IT their own IT spending. The spending, reflecting the decentralization of IT budgets persistent air of caution and risk makes it more difficult to rely on   aversion. If the economy individual polls of buyer intent remains stable, spending will in order to accurately judge likely outpace buyer sentiment sentiment. Underlying polls. If the economy enters sentiment is usually higher than another downturn, buyer surveys indicate. confidence could plunge quickly.

Legend:  very low,  low,  moderate,  high,  very high

Source: IDC, June 2015

Market Context A five-year forecast update (2014–2018) was last published for the enterprise social networks market in Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks 2014–2018 Forecast and 2013 Vendor Shares (IDC #249846, July 2014). Table 7 compares the forecast published in the previous document with the current forecast in terms of regional revenue and worldwide annual growth rates. Historical data (2010–2014) is also included in Table 7 for comparison purposes. Figure 5 displays the same data in graphical form.

IDC expects revenue of standalone enterprise social networks to slow significantly, particularly in the Americas region, compared with the previous forecast. This is aligned to the social workflow processes that are enabled by activity streams and the nature of interactions this generates inside organizations. As the nature of communications in business changes because of the impact of online social interactions, these new dynamics create an increased level of automation in decision support systems through ad hoc workflows and increasing urgency from businesses looking to capture market opportunities created by these new dynamics. This means that the processes inherent in enterprise social networks, primarily activity streams, messaging, and document repositories, will become embedded in other applications rather than being provided by standalone applications and move out into online communities.

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Revenue, 2010–2019: Comparison of July 2014 and July 2015 Forecasts ($M)

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

July 2015 forecast 569.8 806.8 959.0 1,277.1 1,459.7 1,707.2 2,031.7 2,422.3 2,898.4 3,498.7

Growth (%) NA 41.6 18.9 33.2 14.3 17.0 19.0 19.2 19.7 20.7

July 2014 forecast 569.8 806.8 967.9 1,242.0 1,540.9 1,907.0 2,345.4 2,870.4 3,509.4 NA

Growth (%) 33.7 41.6 20.0 28.3 24.1 23.8 23.0 22.4 22.3 NA

Notes: See Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks 2014–2018 Forecast and 2013 Vendor Shares (IDC #249846, July 2014) for prior forecast. Historical market values presented here are as published in prior IDC documents based on the market taxonomies and current U.S. dollar exchange rates existing at the time the data was originally published. For more details, see the Methodology in the Learn More section.

Source: IDC, June 2015

FIGURE 5

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Revenue, 2010–2019: Comparison of July 2014 and July 2015 Forecasts

Source: IDC, June 2015

IDC expects the deployment of standalone enterprise social networks to continue to slow. However, the uptake in online communities is encouraging. Over time, enterprise social networks will become part of the business platform, and vendors like salesforce.com already work in this way. Toward the end of the forecast period, there will be increasing focus on self-service interactions where communities become a powerful business tool to support existing business interactions with customers, employees, partners, and suppliers. In addition:

. Online communities will become a place of interaction as well as transaction. As businesses look beyond customer support as a way to engage users in the community, there are many opportunities in delivering a comprehensive business platform that can connect to other business functions. By connecting components of the business and supplier network that may collaborate through disconnected but shared processes, organizations can start to build an experience that transcends existing business relationships. . Capturing influence, relevance, and expertise across a business or community remains a complex challenge. As organizations look to target future potential touch points of customers and partners, it will be essential to deliver context to these touch points with quick reference to relevant expertise across all business stakeholders. . To enable the core features of enterprise social networks to be surfaced inside enterprise workflow, open APIs need to be provided to enable information assets to become productized, syndicated, and distributed as callable IP assets via an API. Streamlined user interface connectivity also needs to be included to deliver seamless user connectivity between apps.

LEARN MORE

Related Research . Worldwide Collaborative Applications Market Shares, 2014: Year of the Empowered Worker (IDC #256775, June 2015) . Worldwide Collaborative Applications Forecast, 2015–2019 (IDC #256756, June 2015) . Lithium LiNC '15: Moving Toward IPO (IDC #lcUS25713215, June 2015) . Microsoft Office 365 — In Full Force (IDC #lcUS25635315, May 2015) . Salesforce in 2020 (IDC #254171, February 2015) . Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks 2014–2018 Forecast and 2013 Vendor Shares (IDC #249846, July 2014) Methodology Historical Market Values and Exchange Rates Historical market values presented here are as published in prior IDC documents based on the market taxonomies and current U.S. dollar exchange rates existing at the time the data was originally published. For markets other than the United States, these as-published values are therefore based on a different exchange rate each year.

Because many individual countries contribute to regional totals, it is difficult to give precise differences between current and constant currency values in this document. However, the scale of the difference can be understood from the movement of the U.S. dollar against major regional currencies. Customers

©2015 IDC #257492 19 should consider multiplying regional historical market values for each year by the change in value of the U.S. dollar against representative currencies in the region as shown in Table 8. This will provide a better approximation of local market growth. For example, to restate 2012 eurozone values into 2014 dollars, one would adjust the 2012 value upward by 3% (because the dollar weakened slightly against the euro between 2012 and 2014).

Please refer to IDC's regional research studies containing historical forecasts for multiple countries for more accurate regional growth in local currencies. Note that this discussion applies only to historical values prior to 2014. 2014 and all future years are forecast at a constant exchange rate.

TABLE 8

Exchange Rates, 2006–2014 (%)

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Euro 106 97 91 95 100 95 103 100 100

Pound 89 82 90 106 107 103 104 105 100

Yen 110 111 98 88 83 75 75 92 100

Canadian dollar 103 97 97 103 93 90 91 93 100

Mexico peso 82 82 84 102 95 94 99 96 100

Brazilian real 93 83 78 85 75 71 83 92 100

Note: To restate prior-year U.S. dollars, multiply historical market values by the percentage indicated in the table.

Source: IDC, January 2015

Synopsis This IDC study examines vendor revenue performance in the enterprise social networks market for 2012–2014 and presents a forecast of the market for 2015–2019. It also includes vendor revenue share and forecast data in the same periods for the online communities segment of the enterprise social networks market.

"The nature of business interactions is moving toward ongoing communication and building relationships and away from prescriptive and responsive interactions," says Vanessa Thompson, research director for IDC's Enterprise Social Networks and Collaborative Technologies. "Organizations will focus on driving brand awareness as well as having ongoing conversations with customers. This is particularly suited to online communities where brands can quickly build a trust relationship with customers, employees, partners, and suppliers."

©2015 IDC #257492 20 About IDC International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make fact- based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,100 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries worldwide. For 50 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company.

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