Page comments

Brian Jennings — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:25:27 +0100

We’ve heard similar comments before Jason but the customers that rave about Chatter and talk about real business benefits have built it into their business culture. It’s used every day, often in place of email and conference calls. Typically, the companies really benefiting are primarily using cloud applications so that relevant documents and conversation streams are attached to accounts and transaction records in core applications, creating an instant audit trail of discussions pertaining to a business situation or event. It’s a more effective way of connecting teams and departments than email and conference calls but it is a change management process. The value of Chatter climbs exponentially as more people adopt it in the business. For those concerned about disseminating too much information, you can take advantage of creating special groups as a way to filter and maintain appropriate levels of privacy and controlled sharing. It is up to you to determine how much information you share.

Did your organization offer training on using Chatter and encourage everyone to start using it? The only way to change ingrained behavior is by educating staff, setting realistic expectations and allowing ample time for learning, practicing and adopting into daily activities. Employees should be encouraged to replace emails and conference calls with Chatter posts, particularly broadcast emails.

On the flip side, companies need to establish parameters of enterprise social apps and share guidelines for what’s appropriate (and not) for internal business conversations. This will be especially important for the Facebook generation who’s accustomed to social networks outside of the workplace. Make the transition to enterprise social accounting smooth by communicating how it will make day-to-day responsibilities easier with a more complete source of data and conversations, as well as searchable topics and groups to cut down on email.

In this CFO article http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/14615937?f=search Scott Travasos, CFO at Blue Shield of California Foundation provides practical examples of how his organization benefits from using Chatter. He says “we’ve seen the biggest transformation by using social media internally. It’s like an internal Twitter feed, integrated with sales to create a different system of communication.” He also says: “our accounting department has been able to shorten our close cycles and eliminate communication barriers… The embedded nature of Chatter inside our FinancialForce Accounting application is huge for us.”

Jason — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:48:00 +0100

Actually Morse Code is SFDC Chatter, Twitter, etc. I used Chatter at a small and very successful start-up and SFDC partner. Chatter was at first embraced from the top to the bottom of the org; however, that changed in a few weeks.

It was yet another distraction on the desktop that offered little or no value. Content would be buried and much of the content was insignificant tidbits adding little value. The precious or more valuable posts are needles in the haystack and require a constant human monitor to deem a specific post worthy of curating.

Chatter is a bunch of noise, just like Morse Code. I love SFDC for its screens on a database, but man, it is not a collaboration platform and Chatter does not make it a collaboration platform.

Barry MacQuarrie — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 02:35:40 +0000

Thanks for mentioning our survey. Let us know if we can provide any additional information.

Lovely — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 01:13:35 +0000

Steve J - Great advice.
So many Quickbook's issues are rooted in not setting up the software to fit your specific business. I would also add looking at your other system processes (inventory, CRM, etc>) and make sure you know how QB will integrate (or not) with them.

Gaynor — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 08:53:30 +0000

I think the accounting market is going to have to take into account the fast moving pace of today's world. The young generation is used to things happening NOW - just look at the job market, if they do not get what they want, they move. There's not the loyalty to any one job that you had in days gone past. It's going to be the same with products and accounting products are no different. More traditional systems better keep with the programme if they want to keep their edge and be aware that young up and coming more exciting companies are there. .

Gaynor Paynter, figg Excel Accounting Solutions

Tom Brennan — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:53:44 +0000

And coincidentally, this CFO Magazine cover story explores social ROI from the finance department perspective.
It includes the business use case of Chatter enbedded with FinancialForce Accounting at FinancialForce.com customer The Blue Shield of California Foundation. http://www3.cfo.com/article/2012/2/technology_social-media-roi

In the comment section Scott Trevasos says: "Great Article David! Just wanted to add some additional color for your readers as not only is Chatter a tool we use, but it is embedded in our FinancialForce (cloud) Accounting application. It is not a separate tool that is detached or sitting outside our transactional systems. Chatter streams can be attached to transactions, accounts, reports, dashboards etc. Our accounting department has been able to shorten our close cycles and eliminate some of the traditional communication barriers because of this integration. The embedded nature of Chatter inside our FinancialForce Accounting application is huge for us."

That's incredibly compelling and gives great insight into how departments will put social to use in the future.

Tom — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:58:04 +0000

Great points Don. Over the past 10 years most companies have adopted point solutions in the cloud, such as CRM, Travel and Expense etc. In some ways, this fragmented their corporate data. Now companies can put all their applications (including their own custom apps) and data in one cloud as you rightly point out. We have clearly reached a tipping point where the platform as a service message is catching on .This in large part due to the benefits of a single cloud database.

Don — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 07:34:05 +0000

You make some good points and I'd like to make a point: The PaaS (Platform as a Service, eg. Force.com) model provides a great infrastructure for a single database to provide the back-end source for all of your business applications. This contrasts from the "collection of stack technologies" you are refering to because many of these applocations must interface through a batch process or file transfer. With the SaaS model however, applications that provde different functions for your business like CRM and finance/accounting can leverage their flexible API to maintain and ensure that the data is always reliable and up to date, and readily accessible in real time over the internet - via "the cloud". It is a very exciting time for these cloud-based business apps, and it can only get better from here!

Daniel A. Rankin — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:07:01 +0100

Dr. Kaplan has hit the nail on the head in term of the state of the nation for Cloud computing and where its going. There will be a great demand for consultants and advisors who can assist companies in adapting to the new computing paradigm.

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 15:30:18 +0000

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